Sunlight on the River

The world’s great poets interpret the world’s great art in this exquisite book that investigates the connection between art and words, deepening our understanding of both. The poet and the artist share a special kind of vision—an ability to see and penetrate the very essence of their subjects. This volume features poems by writers who turned to paintings for their inspiration, as well as paintings by artists who based their works on poems. Stretching across centuries and styles,
this collection includes Rossetti’s haunting sonnet based on
Botticelli’s Primavera; Wallace Stevens’s "The Man with the Blue
Guitar," a masterful meditation on an iconic painting by Picasso;
William Carlos Williams’s joyous interpretations of scenes by
Breughel; and Adrienne Rich lending a compassionate voice
to the subject of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s The Mourning Chair.
These and other pairings appear as elegant texts facing full
page, glowing illustrations of the paintings. An introduction
to some of the greatest poets and painters in history, this
remarkable book makes a perfect gift, offering compelling
insights into the worlds of art and literature, and the relationship
between the two."The intertwining of the visual and the literary is the underlying basis for this provocative and thoughtful anthology . . . What is undeniable is the pleasure in slowly sifting through Gutterman’s choices . . . Gutterman has been brooding, he says, on the associations between poetry and the visual arts for 30 years, and his choice is both intriguing and captivating. It makes us look more intensely, feel — and think."

—Art Quarterly
"This book would make a charming gift for a literary sort with an eye for art, or vice versa. Art ranges from Vermeer to Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko and Larry Rivers. The poets flow from Shakespeare to William Carlos Williams and Rainer Maria Rilke."

—StarTribune
"[T]here are so many unexpected delights: a six line poem by Wislawa Szymborska on Vermeer’s The Milkmaid is both austere and joyfully optimistic. Anne Sexton’s quietly screaming riffs on mortality connect with intimate passion to Van Gogh’s The Starry Night."

—Art Quarterly