“my bikini is worth your raft”

Two mythological portraits by Sheri Martinelli (1918-1996), muse to Ezra Pound during his confinment in St. Elizabeths in the 1950’s, and the love-portal to his paradiso terrestre depicted in Cantos 90-95. Here Martinelli portrays Pound as Odysseus and herself as Zagreus (Dionysus). During her years of intimacy with Pound, Martinelli sent EP a well known photograph of herself in the mirror wearing a bikini, her painting “Isis Kuanon” in the background. Martinelli’s photo was a response to a similar photo from Eva Hesse to Pound; the bikini, at that time, being a new invention. The above quote is the fragmentary start to a scene which reveals itself in full at the end of Canto 95, the close of the Section:

That the wave crashed, whirling the raft, then
Tearing the oar from his hand,
            broke mast and yard-arm
And he was drawn down under wave,
      The wind tossing,
Notus, Boreas,
      as it were thistle-down.
Then Leucothea had pity,
          “mortal once
Who now is a sea-god:
          νόστυ
γαίης Φαιήκωυ

The scene is of Odysseus drowning, saved by a sea-nymph Leucothea who to save Odysseus derobes and gifts him her shawl, or veil, or as Pound renders it, bikini. The same scene opens the next section of Cantos, Thrones:

Κρήδεμνον…    [veil]
κρήδεμνον…
and the wave concealed her,
        dark mass of great water.

And again, in Canto 98: “Leucothea gave her veil to Odysseus”.

The Sheri-Zagreus avatar does not, on the other hand, feature in the literature. Zagreus is rendered abnormally as female, and the title is underwritten L’Mart (Pound’s nickname of Sheri, La Martinelli, also the title to the catalogue of Sheri’s works Pound had published by Vanni Scheiwiller in 1956) surplus to the signatures “SM” that appear on both portraits. David Moody interprets Sheri’s identification with Zagreus as the “bringer of life to Pound in St Elizabeths”; Sheri thus looking back to the Pisan Canto 77 which closes, “bringest to focus / Zagreus / Zagreus”. While Zagreus is decorated with grapes, Martinelli renders Odysseus with Dionysean characteristics, adorning his head with vine-leaf in a manner reminiscent of Canto II. This offers a vital connection between the two paintings, that of the divine dressing the mortal and offering her protection. In my own reading Zagreus also positions herself behind the right shoulder of Odysseus: the strong line of shoulder, which passes upwards to the neck, obscures the cheek of Zagreus. In this configuration we see, instead of the two gazes crossing each other, Odysseus looking outward while Zagreus stands behind him, not the object of his gaze but something of a support, a narrative true to the St. Liz years, communicated fully through The Cantos, where Martinelli healed Pound. By this the diptych comes together. Not two portraits of mythological avatars, but a encoding of their relationship through ancient stories.

Executed in gouache on cotton rag paper, by brush; the back of the brush used to indent the lettering (“L’Mart” almost appearing to be biro) then followed in colour, as well as the grapes and eyes of Zagreus. With a blank back of the brush Martinelli has scored various symbols into the paint of Odysseus, including one hard to read Chinese ideogram, and a quite visible “EP” on Odysseus’s right cheek. Both signed with Martinelli’s monogram “SM” which appears at least as early as 1961 in Martinelli’s portrait “EZ” published in Miles Payne’s The Light Year (Autumn 1961).

Unopened; no defects. Purchased by David Moody from Peter Bennett, a New Zealand born poet who sold a number of works on Martinelli’s behalf, at the 13th EPIC, Essex, where Bennett held an exhibition of Martinelli’s work (photo available on request). Notes pasted to the back of each by David Moody, as well as stickers from The Maritime Gallery, Brightlingsea.