Landscape, Southampton Yard

J.D. McClatchy, an esteemed American poet, former president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and late owner of Landscape, Southampton Yard, was likely inspired by the present work to write his poem "A Landscape after Fairfield Porter." McClatchy mirrors Porter’s autumnal colors in the emotional palette of his poem, writing: "The afternoon and my idea of an afternoon/Are sitting in the two chairs out back,/Taking it all in--whatever it is, that is,/An early, patchy autumn is proposing/...The year has decided to split up--not half and half,/White for the one, color for the other, but something/In between, the yew-green blotches of foreboding/Insisting to the little blue moon orbiting the lawn/That color is the border between sentiments,/Between an empty heart, say, and a broken one./The sky is rubbing the sleep out of its eyes,/Talking to itself about what happened yesterday./The maple's melancholy gold will try to ransom/What is about to be lost, but it's no use./The leaves lie around like uncollected mail./It's always the same--the painter knows/The family house will need a new coat." (as quoted in J. Wilmerding, K. Wilkin, Fairfield Porter, New York, 2016, pp. 47-49)