Géricault's Severed Limbs Paintings

Jason Dewinetz

A long poem based on the French Romantic artist Theodore Géricault and the figural studies leading to his famous painting "The Raft of the Medusa" of the early 19th century. Blending and drifting between biographical and historical research on the painter and the present day narrator's reflection on a turbulent relationship, Dewinetz writes an examination of intimacy and obsession, working towards an understanding of the conflict between desire and possession, both of beauty and of knowledge.

“I love what Dewinetz doesn't have to say here, too; the way it all opens up into his 'lip's wet fiction.' The precision of the voice is big.”

—John Lent

“Dewinetz is a scholar as well as an artist, and the intellectual power of his long poem is as evident and as demanding as its expression is deceptively simple. He is concerned here to demonstrate how critical ideas can help shape and support creative insights, as well as being vivified by them. This extended anecdote of the creative process is a knowledgeable exploration of the sources and shape of knowledge itself.”

—Allan Brown

jason dewinetz

Jason Dewinetz is the author of four chapbooks of poetry whose writing has appeared in journals across Canada including Grain, Prairie Fire, PRISM International, The Pottersfield Portfolio and Descant.

Co-author (with Michael O'Driscoll) of A Bibliography of the Black Sparrow Press Archive, Jason's first collection of poetry, moving to the clear, was published by NeWest Press in 2002.

An award winning typographer & book designer, Jason teaches English, Creative Writing and Publication Design at Okanagan College in Vernon, BC.

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