varia

A 1657 chalk drawing of a goat by Jacob Jordaens (born 19 May 1593; died 18 October 1678); in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

The Garden State Parkway, 1960

‘New Jersey Journey’, a poem by W. G. Sebald (born 18 May 1944; died 14 December 2001)

Spent two hours at the end of December
on the Garden State Highway
In the ancient Ford’s trunk
nothing but my heart grown
heavier year by year

A protracted catastrophe:
the constant river of traffic
the endless business of overtaking
vicious eye-contact
with total strangers
in the adjacent lane 

Driven by yearning
for its prehistoric brothers
a Jumbo climbs out of Newark
airport over marshes and lagoons
a giant smoking
mountain of rubbish
and the countless lights
of the refineries

Mile after mile of stunted trees
telegraph poles fields of blueberries
a Siberian countryside
colonized then run to seed
with moribund supermarkets
abandoned poultry farms
haunted by millions and millions
of breakfast eggs
harboring the undeciphered sighs
of an entire nation

Near the retirement town of Lakehurst
a safari park soundless
under its coat of frost
cemeteries as spacious
as the world war killing fields
funeral parlours dubious
antique shops and a bus station
for last trips
to Atlantic City

In the twilight of the settlement itself
ten square miles of faintly
luminous bungalows
lawns dwarf-conifers
Christmas decorations
Santa Rudolph the Reindeer
and in front of one of the houses
my uncle feeding the songbirds

Drinking schnapps
he later tells me
of the conquest of New York
Drinking schnapps I consider
the ramifications of our calamity
and the meaning of the picture
that shows him, my uncle
as a tinsmith’s assistant in ’23
on the new copper roof
of the Augsburg synagogue
those were the days

Next day we drive out to the coast
Seaside Park Avenue at noon
the boardwalks deserted
boarded-up diners
Alpine-style summerhouses
with circulating draughts
yachts rattling in the cold
the sub-urban migration of dunes

With the brown house-high waves
in the background my uncle
leaning forward into the wind
snapped me again
with his Polaroid

Do we really die
only once

(translated from the German by Iain Galbraith)

Seaweed, a photograph made in the 1940s by Aaron Siskind (1903-1991)

From constant change figures, a 2006 poem by Lyn Hejinian (born 17 May, 1941)

constant change figures

the time we sense

passing on its effect

surpassing things we’ve known before

since memory

of many things is called

experience

but what of what

we call nature’s picture

surpassing things we call

since memory

we call nature’s picture

surpassing things we’ve known before

constant change figures

experience

passing on its effect

but what of what

constant change figures

since memory

of many things is called

the time we sense

called nature’s picture

but what of what

in the time we sense

surpassing things we’ve known before

passing on its effect

is experience

Pictured above, Adrienne Rich (born 16 May 1929; died 27 March 2012), in a 1987 photograph for The New York Times

A poem by Adrienne Rich:

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
May 26, 2008 

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon’s eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb disgraced goes on doing

there are adjectives up for sale

now diagram the sentence

Reflection (What Does Your Soul Look Like), a 1997 print by Peter Doig; in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London

A poem by Ulrike Almut Sandig (born 15 May 1979)…

wenn du nicht da bist, bist du nirgends zu sehen.
mein gesicht ist gewaschen + in binden gewickelt
damit nicht friert vor dem winter. dein bild ist
mit absicht im album verblättert, auch der tisch
gehört einem anderen: geräumt ist der körperaltar.
sieh her: es wandert quer über mein alterndes haar
                  ein blinder, bringt leichtes + wechselnden wind

when you’re not here, you’re nowhere to be seen.
my face is washed + wrapped in clothes so
that nothing freezes in winter. your photo is
intentionally misplaced in the album, the table also
belongs to someone else: the body altar is clear.
behold: someone blind travels straight through my
aging hair and brings light + shifting wind

(translated by Bradley Schmidt)

Hollywells Park, Ipswich, an oil painting made between 1748 and 1750 by Thomas Gainsborough (baptised 14 May 1727; died 2 August 1788); now in the collection of Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich

Still Life with Tanora, a 1913 papier collé work by Georges Braque (born 13 May 1882; died 31 August 1963); in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York