Projective Identification ( part two): a poem [a doctor meets an artist at a party]

‘Elemental Flame’ image by Tanja Stark from the series Burn, 2001

I saw you 
in the kitchen
at the party, dancing 
an enchanted woman 
blazing, wild and free

I held you later
in the bathroom
raw proximity 
to passion
spirits spilling
through your scarlet 
pulsing hair

you seemed so alive
back then, while I
was still unfolding,
yet I’d come to dance 
my soul awake… 
and you, to sing 
yours home

decades on 
you still burn with fire
I wouldn’t see 
without you

I never knew
I was beautiful
at that party too.

tanja stark 


Read Part One here: Projective Identification ( part one) : the artist meets the doctor
*Crossposted at my Substack Sanguino Ergo Sum here.
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Published by Tanja Stark

Australian artist Tanja Stark explores the themes of Suburban Gothic and the Sublime Divine through mixed media and photography, installation, painting and sculpture. Creating work through clay, paperbark, copper and wood, her iconic imagery takes archetypal forms both familiar and unique often centred around electric stove spiral elements and organic vessels. Born in Mackay, now working from a bush studio outside of Brisbane, she is interested in the relationship between personal and collective trauma, healing and creative expression, with an emphasis on spiritual and psychological ideas in contemporary society. She has exhibited and presented across Australia and overseas, together with professional experience in therapeutic counselling and research. She has a B.S.W from University of Queensland and published academic pieces on arts, mental health, trauma Bowie and Jungian themes with Routledge and Bloomsbury Academic Press.

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