Anthrow Circus

MORE BY Jane Potthast

Jane Potthast is a writer, student, and Ars Poetica poet based in New Haven, Connecticut. Jane has a B.A. and M.A. in comparative literature from Goldsmiths, University of London, and began further studies in religion and literature at Yale Divinity in September 2020. Jane prefers writing fiction, but regardless of the form or subject, she mostly approaches her work as a vessel for the exploration of spiritual themes. She hopes to channel the divine through her work, and repents often for spilling gin on her Bible. 
 

The Lion and Me

FICTION BY JANE POTTHAST

This short fictional work was originally written for a course on ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is a Greek term for a literary description of a work of art. Whether in poetry, fiction, or criticism, vividly describing a particular painting or statue can serve as poignant subject matter for a writer or as a device to emphasize the writer’s own themes. In the following text, I utilize a historical, fictive voice to meditate on Yale Gallery’s Lion Relief from the Processional Way (562 B.C.). I imagine the relief from the perspective of someone who might have been present at the Babylonian Ishtar Gate, a wonder of the ancient world originally lined with fierce, gold lions.

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On Looking at Rothko

TEXT BY JANE POTTHAST

When I see a Rothko painting, the feeling is akin to that moment between waking and sleep when one is delayed—happily—in an absence of category. A purity of breath and stillness without effort. A cessation of being. But to be transported to these realms by his art, I must see the original painting in person. Otherwise the image has no effect.

And this is the enduring strength of Rothko in the age of the smartphone.

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View From a Pandemic: A Journal Entry, Quarantine Day 12

WORDS BY JANE POTTHAST
PHOTOS BY MANUELA THAMES

This happens when I have been alone too long—the words start to leak out of everything and they will not stop. I cannot look around, I cannot take a single step, without it becoming prose, and it is not welcome. It thrusts me into a place where language imposes this acute separation between me and everything else—leaks its ink out of the bark, the pavement, the sky, flowing directly from itself to me in the form of a stream of words, and it will not let me rest.

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The Argentine Surprise

TEXT BY JANE POTTHAST
PHOTOS BY ADELINE CAPARIN

I’ll be honest: It was Norway I’d begun dreaming of. My imagination was taken captive by images of fjords and pines, of iron and snow and bears, of iced sea light and a refreshing, starry cold. I was certain this was the next place beauty would greet me.

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Subway Poem 1

TEXT, POEM, AND IMAGES BY JANE POTTHAST

For a long time, I worked somewhere different each day. I spent long hours on the subway, commuting from location to location. Collecting one lonely descent after the other, hours spent zoning in and out of the rhythmic haul of the trains, I started to feel like I occupied two worlds, spending half my time in the one belowground. Finding myself stuck in this closed circuit of city gears, I had nothing else to do but notice the strange aesthetics of this underworld. .

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Masolino’s Annunciation

STORY BY JANE POTTHAST

In a holiday season full of the wonder of childhood delight mixed with the hopes and burdens of adults, our contributor Jane Potthast stumbles upon a favorite painting from childhood and wonders whether it holds something new for her now.

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Two Paintings and an Encounter

STORY BY JANE POTTHAST

This week’s writer illustrates the power of art for guiding us to new places. For her, two paintings in a Vatican gallery thrust her into a spiritually profound encounter.

These, the “Pope’s paintings,” cried out to God more than any others as we wound through masterpieces in the sad, vast Vatican.

We were plodding through the quarters and it was less crowded than the other museums, as it was not on the path to the Sistine Chapel.

I started to tremble when we saw a Raphael, his last before death. A secrecy pervaded the image, forcing me to a craggy edge of longing at which my eyes watered.

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