The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo: Poems by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

From the first to the last page of The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Poems, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda captures and evokes the spiritual richness and artistic quaking of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their complicated, love-torn lives. With sumptuous imagery, yet acute precision and detail, the book delves into the artistic, marital and physical struggles of the artists, detailing how Kahlo, who even as she was undergoing painful surgeries and engaging her work, anguished about her husband Diego Rivera’s famous infidelities. The Rivera poems are sometimes delicate, sometimes swarthy and muscular, representing the painter’s physical and imagistic largess, as well as his interaction with his beloved Kahlo — an endearing, nonchalant kiss. Kreiter-Foronda’s portrait of these artists explores work, lives, and their well-documented Titan-like dance in an authentic voice, giving life and breath to not only Kahlo’s surreal self-portraits, the tragic accident that became her artistic nexus, Diego’s “art for the people” stance, but also the stoic and defiant voices of the artists that emboldened first the Mexican people and subsequently, the world. With its kinetic energy and bold envisioning, The Embrace is a well-researched, supremely crafted and perfectly executed narrative “embrace.” ––Shonda Buchanan, author of Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?