Alma, in Hungarian

Although I didn't make photographs of the Alma performance and none afterward, except for Harold's birthday cake, I do have images of the program and of Szidi's translations of my poems into Hungarian. Photographed, I might add, on my dining room table and therefore not of professional quallity





ALMA, both the book and this particular poem, began with the rush of blood to my imagination when cold autumn weather arrives. This poem became a song, one that simply took over and carried me with it, much as the manuscript of WILDWOOD FLOWER itself did.







































EMPTY GLASS worked especially well set to Harold's haunting music. A young Hungarian guitarist read it in Hungarian for me during intermission. Because the language and rhythm were so mysterious to me, the poem sounded even more haunting in Hungarian!


































LULLABY has always mystified me. On the literal level, I can say that I wrote it during one of those winters when we still had lots of snow here in the mountains. I had heard of roofs collapsing under heavy snowfall, and I imagined Alma's fear of that happening to her cabin roof. But the internal landscape of the poem still gives me the shivers.


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