Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Invisibility

A friend of mine and I are looking for poems on the theme of invisibility (Unsichtbarkeit). If you have any suggestions, from any period, in English, French, or German (our three common languages), please pass them on by email or as a comment on this post!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, I'm drawing a blank. It seems like Elizabeth Bishop should have something, with all her interest in perspective and inversions--but I guess not.

I can't wait to hear what you come up with!

K

Andrew Shields said...

Bishop, an excellent suggestion. A quick bit of Googling ("elizabeth bishop" invisible) shows that the word "invisible" appears in "The Map," "At the Fishhouses," and "Cape Breton."

That does not make them "about" invisibility, but it's something to look at!

Other readers: More suggestions still welcome!

Tony Williams said...

Sean O'Brien has a number of poems which touch on the theme of 'invisible' people, though they may or may not be quite what you're looking for.

E.g. 'Tha Park by the Railway' in his selected poems Cousin Coat, 'No One' and 'Somebody Else' in Ghost Train

Tony

Donald Brown said...

Poems huh? I immediately think of songs. Costello's "Invisible Man," Kate Bush's "How to Become Invisible," and the music hall song quoted in Ulysses: "I am the boy/who can enjoy/invisibility."

Not thinking of any poems at the moment, except these lines, by you know who:

"Erde, ist es nicht dies, was du willst: unsichtbar/in uns erstehn? -- Ist es dein Traum nicht,/einmal unsichtbar zu sein? -- Erde! unsichtbar!"

Andrew Shields said...

Don, Rilke is an awesome suggestion. Karin went on to suggest Dickinson off-line.

Tony, thanks for the Sean O'Brien suggestion. I have "Cousin Coat" and will look it up.