{"id":3920,"date":"2018-10-04T22:02:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T02:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/?p=3920"},"modified":"2018-10-06T21:36:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T01:36:30","slug":"sandys-poem-in-a-skyscraper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/sandys-poem-in-a-skyscraper\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandy’s Poem in a Skyscraper"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 4, 2018 email to MHC Class of 1961<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear friends, family, fellow poets,<\/p>\n

I have had some unexpected good news this past week which I’d like to
\nshare with all of you.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday evening, I got an email from the studio of the conceptual
\nartist Jenny Holzer. I was familiar with her name, and have seen some of
\nher work at the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston.<\/p>\n

Holzer has been commissioned to create a large LED artwork for the
\npublic atrium of a skyscraper, the Comcast Technology Center, which is
\ncurrently being built in Philadelphia. Designed by the architect Sir
\nNorman Foster, it will be the tallest building in Philadelphia, and
\nthere’s been a lot of hype about it.<\/p>\n

The LED artwork will consist of nine panels, suspended above the
\nbuilding’s atrium, animated by text, which will be added to gradually
\nover the years to come, that will scroll from one panel to another.<\/p>\n

The email went on to say that the permanent editorial core of the work
\nwill initially consist of poetry by some of Jenny\u2019s longstanding
\nfavorite authors such as Wis\u0142awa Szymborska and Anna Swir, as well as
\nseveral poets strongly associated with the city of Philadelphia, among
\nthem William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore — and writing by
\narchitects, led by Louis Kahn and Sir Norman.<\/p>\n

And, to my astonishment, a poem of mine (from my first book, “The
\nCountry of Women”), “In the Small World.”<\/p>\n

I have no idea how and when she became acquainted with this poem.<\/p>\n

I was stunned and delighted by this news. It was followed by a week of
\nnail-biting suspense and frustration, because permission for the use of
\nmy poem had to be obtained from the publisher of the book it’s in. The
\npermission was urgently needed; the publisher was ridiculously hard to
\nreach; at points I thought the whole thing was going to fall through.
\nBut finally, just about twenty-four hours ago, it became a done deal.
\nPermission was granted and an agreement signed between Calyx Books and
\nthe studio of Jenny Holzer.<\/p>\n

I do not yet know when the building will be open and the installation
\ncompleted; it’s planned for “the first quarter of 2019.”<\/p>\n

It would delight me if some of you could get to Philadelphia sometime in
\nthe future to see this work. And meanwhile I hope you’ll rejoice in my
\ngood fortune.<\/p>\n

With warm wishes to you all,  S.<\/p>\n

In the Small World<\/strong><\/span>
\n (after a visit to the model train museum in Strasbourg, Pennsylvania)<\/span><\/p>\n

Walk through the black curtain and it is night.<\/span>
\n The room that houses the world is barnlike and shabby,<\/span>
\n bare planks underfoot, a worn handrail separates us<\/span>
\n fom the exhibition tables, defines the narrow passage<\/span>
\n we are crowded into, a constricted ellipse<\/span>
\n circling the model world. At first all you see<\/span>
\n are myriad lights: here it is night when the world<\/span>
\n is lit by lamplight, floodlights, streetlights,<\/span>
\n car lights, spotlights, train lights. The darkness glistens<\/span>
\n as in a child\u2019s night-lit room where every shadow\u2019s gilded.<\/span>
\n In the light everything in this world is moving.<\/span>
\n Skaters go round and round the pond; skiers ride the lift<\/span>
\n up and their skis down over and over on the one<\/span>
\n snowy slope. The steamboat in the amusement park<\/span>
\n paddles back and forth its one swath of water;<\/span>
\n the locomotive on its scaled-down track shuttles<\/span>
\n from Strasbourg to Paradise and back, its smoke<\/span>
\n clouding the fields where hounds chase the fox<\/span>
\n they never catch. Tobacco fields are hoed and hoed<\/span>
\n again; one boy flies a kite behind the barn while scouts<\/span>
\n camping in the next wood work on their next badge,<\/span>
\n chopping logs, shooting arrows, boxing; the badge<\/span>
\n they will never finish. In the playground the seesaw<\/span>
\n rocks to the drums of the approaching parade.<\/span>
\n As the soldiers near; the children\u2019s play changes rhythm,<\/span>
\n and what was singing goes marching. The house on fire<\/span>
\n is conveniently next door to the firehouse. When the alarm<\/span>
\n sounds, engines rush to it the way the ambulance<\/span>
\n does to the accident down the block; men carry the victim<\/span>
\n bloodily away, put out the flames; each returning<\/span>
\n silence is broken by the scream of sirens. The circus<\/span>
\n is in the midst of a performance: its parade<\/span>
\n circles the streets, acrobats riding elephants;<\/span>
\n in the big tent the high wire act is already in the air,<\/span>
\n trapeze artists dancing toward and away from each other,<\/span>
\n while below them seals balance tiny globes, never stopping.<\/span>
\n Everything starts up and finishes and starts again.<\/span>
\n No wonder t<\/span>here is a wedding and a funeral both.<\/span>
\n The wedding party gathers in front of the church while<\/span>
\n on the other side of the graveyard, a marquee,<\/span>
\n festive and bridal, shelters the fresh bed waiting<\/span>
\n for the flag draped coffin, and soldiers in blue fire<\/span>
\n seven guns into the stunning silence of old gravestones.<\/span>
\n It is right that the only funeral is that of a soldier<\/span>
\n whose death belongs to him the way play belongs to children<\/span>
\n or answering alarms to firefighters or soaring from thin<\/span>
\n wires into thin air to trapeze artists. The same soldier<\/span>
\n is buried over and over. No one in this world is lying<\/span>
\n in a field gazing at the sky until time stops spinning;<\/span>
\n no one is painting a picture or carving stone;<\/span>
\n no one steps outside the music of the many parades<\/span>
\n to the space where music comes from to create it; no one<\/span>
\n wrestles along with the sense of a world moving and still<\/span>
\n beyond him. Nothing here moves to the inexorable rhythm<\/span>
\n which musters us to a destination outside this world<\/span>
\n we surround and encompass like sentinels, larger than life,<\/span>
\n with its valleys, its mountains, its long days<\/span>
\n and short nights illuminated for beauty.<\/span>
\n This is how we live most of the time, small<\/span>
\n and beautifully moving as these replicas,<\/span>
\n blind to anything but the dazzling display.<\/span><\/p>\n

     —Poem by Sandra Kohler, <\/span>from The Country of Women<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Editor note:  The new building is fantastic.  See some photos and read an article about it.  Click here to see it.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 4, 2018 email to MHC Class of 1961 Dear friends, family, fellow poets, I have had some unexpected good news this past week which I’d like to share with all of you. Last Thursday evening, I got an email … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21548],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu\/1961\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}