Art in Translation

Watching the Tango

by Becca Mullen ’18

& aren’t we all destroyed anyway?
Tallied in encyclopedias,
Bibles & veritas.
 
Memento mori
in latin means
remember that you have to die
 
But here a hiccup —
a lifetime in 2 minutes, 48 seconds
 
a man paces, chases, bleeds    out
a woman dances the tango
 
& I wonder what happens when they turn the lights off at night
 
My socks are wet in my boots
 
Its monday & yesterday
I found a hole the size of my little
finger in the cracked leather
 
My little finger slides easily into many things,
it is a good measuring tool that way.
 
I suppose I too slide easily into many things.  
 
But today my back hurts;
I’m in the wrong chair.
 
& This wasn’t history when I started writing it down
 
The film figure-eights
 
She’s beautiful in ink and chalk.
2 minutes, 48 seconds just to know her
 
But I am unseen, unremembered, unneeded
caught in a particular collision.

Poem inspired in part by the exhibition William Kentridge: Tango for Page Turning, on view from September 5-December 17, 2017.

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stone boy (blues)

by Ben Sambrook ’18

as a child I built / found my likeness on a beach in Wales

my small weight sinking into wet sand

teeth aching from cold breath

sometimes I wonder if you scooped up pieces of me that I dropped

turning out all my pockets learning how to love

like a boy

I rubbed soft rocks between my thumb and pointer finger

and hurled them / myself into the sea

in this museum I am half boy half sticky and warm

half Welsh beach in the dead of winter

half naked body in your new sheets

half peach pit in the center of your palm

the voices go all the way up to the ceiling and hang there

like lanterns, ornaments, hot air,

bodies

shadow statues with no eyes just holes

eye to small, black, hollow place

were they created first and then gouged out?

left unfilled while the artist finished

the feet

an ear

a cock?

I kiss with my pupil

men carved from stone with bodies not much different than mine

I see my 19th century chest welded in iron, scars sealed by a hot knife

our bodies close and opened

an impressionist body of hermaphrodite

sits in warm gold

minor deity of androgyny, marriage, sexuality, fertility

only a suggestion of form

almost dancing in clean light

I see myself at 5 angles under 34 perfect spotlights

Aphrodite and Hermes’ beautiful child

Born man, woman, God

She says:

What’s it like to be soft?

I say:

Dr. Johnson did a better job in 2 hours than God did in 7 days.

She says:

What if being and making are the same thing?

I think of tube in throat, soft blades and warm sheets

arms soldered to hips

a small bare chest on the cold coast of Wales

Poem inspired in part by the exhibition A Very Long Engagement: Nineteenth-Century Sculpture and Its Afterlives, on view from July 29, 2017-May 27, 2018.

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the world is becoming so small

by Anish Pai ’19

In order to preserve the author's formatting, the poem is available via this clickable link:

anisha pai_the world is becoming so small.pdf

Poem inspired in part by an installation in the Museum's Harriet L. and Paul M. Weissman Gallery, fall 2017.

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Charles Louis Remond, Oil on Canvas

by Henna Joshi ’18

I’d rather die than write about this
But
This ugly ass painting
Or
This beautiful painting
Of an ugly ass man
He’s everything I’d never want

Poem inspired in part by Nicholas Largillière's, Charles Louis Remond, Comte de Hergh, Capitaine de Royal Croate, Chevalier des Ordres du Roy, 1715.