Picking Wild Raspberries: The Imaginary Love Poems of Gertrude Stein

Beryl Baigent is a poet; her published collections include Absorbing the
Dark, Hiraeth: In Search of Celtic Origins, Triptych: Virgins, Victims,
Votives, and Mystic Animals.

The thematic nature of this collection is immediately suggested by the
subtitle, and by Phyllis Serota’s cover art, which depicts two women
standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Rosemary Aubert is a published
romance novelist and crime-fiction writer, and there is an intriguing
undercurrent of these two qualities in her second book of poetry. She
opens her collection with the title poem, which introduces the reader to
the mystery and jeopardy of a full life. Adventure begins with “the
sighting,” and follows with “the reaching / the abandonment to
risk” and, finally, “the succulent reward.”

Gertrude Stein was a well-known patron of avant-garde artists and
writers in Paris in the early 20th century. Her apartment on the Rue de
Fleurus became a noted literary salon and gallery. Among those she
welcomed to her home were Picasso, Matisse, and Juan Gris, along with
writers Ford Madox Ford, Apollinaire, and Ernest Hemingway (“I like
the looks of a strong young man / always have”). Aubert appropriates
the voice of Stein as she speaks with her companion / wife, Alice
Toklas. Using chatty and unpretentious language, Aubert depicts the
relationship of these women unfolding amid a backdrop of paintings that
become metaphors for their shared feelings. Alice, to Stein, is at first
“like these paintings ... / trapped in rectangles and squares / and
ready to explode.” While Gertrude wears “rough clothes,” is her
“rough laughing self,” and looks “straight into the sun,” Alice
is her complement: silky and soft, and Gertrude’s dark, “small,
exquisite shadow,” her shade, her evening, her rest.

Knowing something about the history of the artists’ collective in
Paris in this period and being cognizant of art language would allow the
reader to delve deeper into the art-defined metaphors; however, this
collection is an interesting exploration of a lesbian relationship in a
time when such relationships were unconventional. Aubert makes the
reader feel that he or she knows this radical woman who detached herself
from mainstream society and explored her own power and creativity,
concluding that “all things are one thing / ... Is is is. It’s as
simple as that.”