One of the many images informing Narcissus Resists is this massive drawing by the artist Jess (Burgess Collins), poet Robert Duncan’s long-time companion and lover. This is all graphite on paper and collage paste-up; Jess began it in 1976 and finished it in 1991:
I first saw it at SFMOMA back in March 2005 when I was visiting friends in San Francisco and couldn’t tear myself away, transfixed on all the glorious detail and resonance with my own interpretation of the Narcissus story. I knew I had to reference the image in some way and found it worked well in the end lines of the “Concomitant” section where I conflate the image of Narcissus and Apollo depicted here, turning Narkissos into the sun god for a brief moment.