The keynote of Signs, Translations is the productive work of paying attention to small, apparently passing, details. Henry David Thoreau is, in a way, a tutelary deity for these poems, and the subject of the poem sequence 'Repossessions'. "No one sees a flower, really," the painter Georgia O'Keeffe once remarked. The intention of this book is to allow the reader to see street signs; house fronts; birds; changes of weather, e...
The keynote of Signs, Translations is the productive work of paying attention to small, apparently passing, details. Henry David Thoreau is, in a way, a tutelary deity for these poems, and the subject of the poem sequence 'Repossessions'. "No one sees a flower, really," the painter Georgia O'Keeffe once remarked. The intention of this book is to allow the reader to see street signs; house fronts; birds; changes of weather, even graffiti, in the light of poetry.
John Hildebidle has been a teacher for nearly forty years, from public
secondary school, to Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). He currently teaches English, Irish, and American
literature at MIT. He writes poetry and fiction. Defining Absence is his third collection of poetry. His fourth collection Signs Translations was published by Salmon in 2008.
Particular Effects of Morning Light
Haze molds the streetscape,
leaving the familiar strangely
unrecognizable.
Brick never seemed so kind.
Neon, now, smiles affably.
Out on the turnpike, fog
descends, thick, unforgiving,
extreme. Eyes emerge
in place of tailights--the road
is a place of prowling beasts.
Then--gone. Clear sky, sun
on the rock of road-cuts, dyed
green, gold, grey: sandstone?
something with copper? Granite?
Why do we let the light so toy with the world?
