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Näett louis d'or charbon de lumière ma nuit et mon soleil
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handful_ofdust has Tumblr-posted one of my favorite artifacts. I first saw it in Talking to the Sun: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems for Young People (1985), published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated with objects from Met's collections. It was photographed from a slightly different angle then, accompanying a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor:I want to say your name, Naëtt! I want to make you an incantation, Naëtt!
Naëtt, her name has the sweetness of cinnamon it's the perfume where the wood of lemon trees sleeps.
Naëtt, her name has the sugared whiteness of coffee trees in flower
It's the savannah which blazes beneath the masculine love of the mid-day sun.
Name of dew cooler than shade and the tamarind tree
Cooler than the quickly-passing dusk when the heat of day is silenced.
Naëtt, it's the dry whirlwind and the dense clap of thunder.
Näett coin of gold coal of light my night and my sun
I your champion have made myself a sorcerer to name you
Princess of Elissa exiled from Fouta on a catastrophic day.
(I don't know the translator. The original text is here.)
It was "Fragment of a head of Queen Tiye. Yellow jasper. Egyptian, Dynasty 18 ca. 1417–1379 BC" when I read about it as a child. I see it's now "Fragment of the face of a queen," her identity as split and partial as the curve of her lips or her eyes lost to the smooth cleavage of stone.
It's still beautiful.
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It was my favorite. I remember discovering other poets with that anthology (Ezra Pound especially), but Senghor has just stayed with me. And had the best illustration.
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Nine
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Yes.
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I couldn't see it again without thinking of Senghor's poem. I thought when I was small he was writing about her.
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I think that's wonderful.
(I didn't know you worked at the Met.)
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And the fragment of face is beautiful too, especially the how the break comes down to her lip.
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(We all had to write essays on Romeo and Juliet, which had been part of our curriculum that year. I wrote either no essay at all or a very short essay--I don't remember which--and used up all or most of my application space on a poem. It was an unspeakably awful poem about a modern-day Juliet who had survived her Romeo's death, moved to a large city, achieved anonymity, and was planning suicide. I mean, it was a really, really bad poem.
But. But. It was a poem. It had the scansion and rhyme scheme of a sonnet, all the proper rhymes in their proper places, the slavish devotion to word stresses that afflicts all adolescent poets who have been trained in music.
It was an awful poem. And we weren't supposed to write poems, we were supposed to write essays. The other four contestants were smarter than me, they got better grades, they had written quite correct essays with perfect spelling and punctuation. But not me. I Knew Better. I Thought Outside Of The Box. I was Clever.
Of course I won the prize. My adolescence was a hippie-flavored Lifetime movie script.)
The fact that this book is still one of my great treasures, despite the circumstances under which it was given to me, is a testament to what a wonderful book it is.
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It's how I learned what jasper looks like.
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I took it for granted when I read the book as a small child that Senghor must have written the poem about her, the fragmentary head of a queen. It is an incantation.
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I am so glad you survived it.
The fact that this book is still one of my great treasures, despite the circumstances under which it was given to me, is a testament to what a wonderful book it is.
(a) I am really happy to hear it. I think it is a wonderful anthology; it was a huge imprint on my childhood and still lives in my parents' house, on their poetry shelf. I had no idea it was important to so many other people.
(b) That is a great story.
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It feels whole in its fragmented nature. It doesn't feel like anything's lacking.
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It is very much like things you write about and post!
And the fragment of face is beautiful too, especially the how the break comes down to her lip.
Yes.
And there is no reason to believe it's a portrait statue rather than an idealized canon, yet you still feel you know something about the woman from that mouth and chin.
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I ran into Sam Waterston once in a convenience store. I was clinically dehydrated from a combination of stomach flu, all-night writing to deadline, and a general failure of common sense; under doctor's orders, I was buying eight liters of water and a bag of chips. Waterston was buying some snacks and an armful of roses for his castmates in Long Wharf Theatre's Travesties, which was opening that night. I told him he had really good eyebrows. (It's true.) He laughed without rudeness and told me to give mine time. I still think this is one of the most gracious responses a person can give to a compliment from someone who is clearly nearly hallucinating behind them in the checkout line.
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I am glad. It's one of those indelible art-word combinations that rooted very early in my brain.
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I am glad to be able to share.
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I bumped into Alan Rickman, twice, about a year apart. The second time I said "You, again?" and he looked puzzled and I explained I'd run full into him coming around the corner at the Leicester Square Tube station and he said "Oh, pardon me," and bowed slightly and gave me a grin.
Which isn't a Met story, but it's the one you reminded me of. My top Met story was when Jackie O. bought her tag from me and the young woman working with me that day didn't know who she was.
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"We spotted each other immediately, exchanged silent greetings from afar, and at the first brief pause in the action, I climbed down from the stage, ran up the aisle and gave him a sweaty hug. It was Sam Waterston."
Thank you!