56.57
what looks like
rest or thought
is wait
sitting on a wooden
slat what looks like seeing
is a world away
my fixed pause
the point, time —
where or how to sleep
New York City
*
56.57
with a change bag
pinned to my dress
and cinched neck, his
heavy under harness
side-by-side we share
the same short clip
(hair, mane)
alert to cobble-stoned
hooves, boots —
absence not a stop
but shape our gaits, stolen
New York City
*
56.57
how it is broad ways are
filled up, steel and dirt
and stone-
truth full, all too fast
paced they say
but so slow
an eye sets on nothing
while the head nods yes
New York City
*
Note:
These poems are from a longer series, inspired by the photographs of Lewis Hine (1874-1940), especially those he took while working as a reformer for the National Child Labor Committee in the early 1900’s. I have drawn on his depictions of Ellis Island, New York City street life, and labor conditions throughout the Northeast and Southern states.
Hines photographs are noteworthy for many reasons, but of special interest, given the historical period in which he worked, is how he allows his subjects to look directly at the camera, creating a relationship between equals (the photographer and the photographed.) My concern has been to find a poetic language that is, as a third participant, also equal, while at the same time allowing the innate language to come forward from the static image.
I am gratefully indebted to Hine and his camera.
*
Susanne Dyckman is the author of a full-length volume of poetry, equilibrium’s form (Shearsman Books), and two chapbooks, Counterweight (Woodland Editions) and Transiting Indigo (EtherDome). Her work has appeared in a number of journals, most recently shadowtrain.com, Volt, and the Paper Kite Press anthology poem, home. She has been a thesis advisor for the University of San Francisco MFA in Writing program, an editor of the journal Five Fingers Review and its Woodland Editions chapbook series, and a judge for the San Francisco State University Ann Fields Poetry Contest. A co-winner of the Five Fingers Review Poetry Award (prior to her association with the journal), she was also a finalist for the Electronic Poetry Review Discovery Award and the Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Poetry Prize. For five years she curated and hosted the now-occasional Evelyn Avenue summer reading series. She lives in Albany and works for Children’s Hospital Oakland.