Oldal 145 [145]
ON BEARING WITNESS TO A POETIC RITUAL
POEMS BY PILINSZKY INSPIRED BY DEAFMAN GLANCE
Seashore, shingle, noise of gulls. Sheryl, as in an Edgar Allan Poe poem, is sitting in
a throne-like armchair in the full light of noon with a black raven to her left. Her
dress, cut from black taffeta, is ground-length and motionless.
Before I knew her, a few weeks after the performance, I even wrote a poem on this
sitting-about. Ted Hughes made an English translation of it. Here is the original:
Bűn és bűnhődés
Sheryl Suttonnak
A befalazott képzelet
még egyre ismételgeti —
A pillanat villanyszék trónusán
még ott az arc,
sziklábamártott nyakszirt,
gyönyörű kéz —
pórusos jelenléted.
Még tart a nyár.
Ereszd le jogarod, Királynő
Ted Hughess translation, I feel, captures in English the same black American girl
of whom I, a Hungarian, took my snapshot. Sheryl found the poem dedicated to her
nice, though a bit overexposed.
Peter Jay: Preface, in J. Pilinszky: Conversations with Sheryl Sutton. The Novel of a Dialogue,
Manchester/Budapest, Carcanet — Corvina, 1992, 13.
* 143 ¢