Self-Portrait with Thorns

Gail Goepfert’s Self-Portrait with Thorns is a master class in the ekphrastic. If Frida Kahlo’s paintings both veil and confess, so do these poems. Also thriving as personal lyric, Goepfert weaves a tapestry over the confessional that is both unflinching and surreal. Goepfert shows another way into Kahlo’s work while also demonstrating her own mettle as a substantial artist. Proving every reason, she too, deserves to be seen.

-Rogan Kelly, poet and editor of The Night Heron Barks