Vintage valentine_ French postcard, early 20th century_Friendship is a flower that never dies. Valentine cards were not ONLY about romantic love. One gave them to children, parents, friends and teachers.

Vintage valentine from 1907_Dear Heart, What a Peach You Are.

Vintage valentine_Sometimes an anonymous Vinegar Valentine postcard was mailed out by ladies who wished to discourage a gentleman’s persistent attentions.

Vintage Vinegar Valentine_ 1950s

Vintage valentine_Word puns which sometimes succeed have been employed often in Valentine greetings.

Vintage valentine_More punning and colloquialism in this Valentine card from the 1950s

Contemporary Valentine card aimed at the Black American market

Love and Death are So Random_Valentine for the Emo and Goth kids

2013 Gringo hipster Valentine card made with papeles picados y tintos_ by Tasha Marks and Emily Evans

Posted: December 25, 2012 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: IMAGES | Comments Off

ZP_Árbol de La Navidad al Charlie Brown_A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Norval Morrisseau: “María”, Madre de Jesús

Posted: December 25, 2012 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: IMAGES | Comments Off

ZP_Mary_by Norval Morrisseau ᐅᓴᐘᐱᑯᐱᓀᓯ born Beardmore Ontario 1932, died Toronto 2007_ Canada’s greatest painter of the twentieth century_Norval Morrisseau fue el gran pintor canadiense del siglo XX

“Tha an saoghal fhathast àlainn, ged nach eil thu ann. / The world is still beautiful, though you are not in it.” Bàrdachd: Latha Naomh Anndra / Gaelic poems for Saint Andrew’s Day

Posted: November 30, 2012 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: IMAGES | Comments Off

Remembrance Day 2012: “War is like a flower…”: poems of War world-wide

Posted: November 11, 2012 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: IMAGES, Louise Glück | Tags: Remembrance Day poems | Comments Off

Louise Glück

“The Red Poppy”

The great thing

is not having

a mind. Feelings:

oh, I have those; they

govern me. I have

a lord in heaven

called the sun, and open

for him, showing him

the fire of my own heart, fire

like his presence.

What could such glory be

if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,

were you like me once, long ago,

before you were human? Did you

permit yourselves

to open once, who would never

open again? Because in truth

I am speaking now

the way you do. I speak

because I am shattered.

. . .

José Guadalupe Posada: the ‘calaveras’ of a Mexican master of social reportage and satire

Posted: November 2, 2012 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: IMAGES, Retratos por José Guadalupe Posada | Tags: Pictures for The Day of The Dead, Retratos para El Día de los Muertos | Comments Off

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The etchings of José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) demonstrated a worldview that was, and often still is, profoundly Mexican. A commercial illustrator who also printed political broadsides, Posada invented the ‘calavera’ portrait. Calavera means skull, and by extension, skeleton. Aspects of the nation’s Indigenous heritage (skulls and death-goddesses were central to Aztec and Maya cultures) plus its Spanish cultural inheritance (death-oriented monastic orders, the ‘dance of death’ and ‘memento mori’ traditions) combine in Posada’s rustic yet sophisticated prints to give us the flavour of the average Mexican’s stoical yet humorous appreciation of Death.

To read a description, allow your ‘mouse’ to hover over each image.

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