First published 2019
Marie-Thérèse Walter is seventeen when she encounters Pablo Picasso on a Paris street. He is forty-six, already famous, and immediately captivated by her blonde beauty. Through poems that capture her voice, she tells the story of their relationship from that first meeting through decades of passion, art, and complicated love. She becomes his muse and the mother of his daughter Maya, yet remains largely hidden from the world while Picasso moves between other women and wives. The poems follow her devotion through the years, her role in inspiring some of his most celebrated works, and the profound connection that endured even as he aged and their relationship evolved. After Picasso's death, Marie-Thérèse struggles with a world without him. Three years later, she takes her own life. These direct, sketch-like poems illuminate what John Berger called the sexually most important affair of Picasso's life, while revealing the depth of Marie-Thérèse's own feelings for the man who shaped her existence.
Genres: art, romance, 20th-century, biographical-fiction
Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Paris
Period: 20th-century
65 pages · Kindle Edition · Carcanet Poetry