PAD Challenge Bonus: Grandmom the Art Critic

 On Day 18 I wrote "The Answer Squash", an ekphrastic poem based on an installation I read about by artist Anthea Hamilton at the Tate Gallery in London. (You can read about it here.) I find it fascinating, and if I were near the Tate (an excellent museum which I have visited before in prior trips to London), I would check it out. But it's not for everyone, for sure, and one of the most notable features is the squash-shaped full-head masks worn by the models, who walk around in a huge, classically decorated, tiled room. I noted in my blog that day that it reminded me of my wife's Italian family's saying, "You have a head like a gagootz!" The word gagootz is a slang dialectic version of cucuzza, a type of Italian squash. So therefore, if you have a head like a gagootz, you're not very bright or thoughful. All this begged another poem: What if my wife's relatives, like her mother (who was born here) or grandmother (from the "old country") had seen this exhibit? They would not have minced words. This poem, you could say, is a kind of "remix" (see day 28) in that it's different take on the same artistic subject.  Here are some samples of the costumes in this exhibit:

And here is the poem:

If My Wife's Italian Mother Had Visited Anthea Hamilton's 

"The Squash" at the Tate Gallery 

Ai, maron!

What is this place with all the tiles and columns?

It looks like the pope's bathroom!

And how about these models,

wearing these science-fiction clothes?

That one looks like a badger, and that one

looks like some weeds I pulled out of my garden!

Their taste is all in their mouth!

Speaking of which, they should eat something -

so skinny! Mangia, girls!

Here, I brought some pizzelles in my purse!

And what's with these big hats,

or masks, or whatever?

You can't even see their faces,

and their heads all look like a squash, 

a gagootz!

You'd have to have a head like a gagootz

to like this stuff!

Now where's the real art?

Don't they have the Mona Lisa here?

Or the Pietà?