* contemplating one-sidedness via bill knott

This week’s poem is another gem from Bill Knott.

I’m always happy to run into poems that take on an overlooked part of life and refresh it, make it new by simple acknowledgement. In the case of Knott’s poem “Paradise,” the act of reading a book with facing translations is blown up for the meeting of worlds and circumstances that it is. The choice of words to describe what he terms “Righthandland” – gutter, damned, pulp, tongue – and what it means to dwell as a reader in one language with only glimpses of the original is spot-on. Enjoy!

* notes from Lefthandland *

Paradise – Bill Knott

Always reading the recto

translation of a verso

original, my eye fades.

I notice how the paper

here on this side seems

darker than its opposite:

it is brighter over there

on the lefthand page, the

words of the real poem

give it that glow which

the prized act of creation

emits.  We who must live

here in Righthandland

are damned no matter

how hard we try to rhyme

minds with that perfect

realm across the gutter.

Even if our pulp comes

from the same stock,

we fear closing the book

will bring us face to face,

mouth to mouth with

that tongue we’ve always

lost, and can never kiss.

***

Happy nevering!

Jose