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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 ¢
