Ode to a Model
Since a large part of my life is fashion and since it is often funny and interesting, I have decided to introduce it as another theme. Recently I’ve become obsessed with Vladimir Nabokov’s writing. From his prophetic Bend Sinister, to his eerily tender Ada, to the much loved Lolita, and in and out of collected poems and short stories his writing is impecable and awe inspiring. And so to celebrate the influence of models and fashion here is his amusing poem, “Ode to a Model.”
(Twiggy)
I have followed you, model,
in magazine ads through all seasons,
from dead leaf on the sod
to red leaf on the breeze,
from your lily-white armpit
to the tip of your butterfly eyelash,
charming and pitiful,
silly and stylish.
Or in kneesocks and tartan
standing there like some fabulous symbol
parted feet pointing outward
— pedal form of akimbo.
On a lawn, in a parody
of Spring and its cherry-tree
near a vase and a parapet
virgin practising archery.
Ballerina, black-masked
near a parapet of alabaster.
“Can one — somebody asked —
rhyme ‘star’ and ‘disaster’?”
Can one picture a blackbird
as the negative of a small firebird?
Can a record, run backward,
turn ‘repaid’ into ‘diaper’?
Can one marry a model?
Kill your past, make you real, raise a family
by removing you bodily
from the back numbers of Sham?
