evawal: Mirror of Language

The picture in a mirror is not an exact effigy of what is reflected. It is always distorted and a bit mysterious. The mirror is a powerful tool, symbol and metaphor. What, if you look out of it? If you decide to even go through the looking glass like Alice did once, it can lead you into a wonderland.

Writing in another language is an adventure, reflecting your mother tongue but transforming your mind with new rhythm and melody.

Since collaborating with Bill Jenkinson and Oxford Stanza 2 in 2017 a process has started of translating and revising English-German or German-English poems. Suddenly I found myself writing poems in English and then translating them into German.

Bill and I will perform our way of collaboration, joggling the mirror of language.

I also will give examples of my practice to connect poetry with visual arts, especially my poems in mirror writing.

mirrored mirrorwriting, (c) Eva Wal

Der Mond

Der Mond hängt im Himmel

wie eine fleischfressende Pflanze

Grün, gefräßig und gelb

Ob nur für heute Nacht oder für alle Zeit:

Er ist ein grausam gewaltig zartes Blatt

aus mimosenhaftem Grün

Er hängt da für die Liebe

und sonst nichts.

The Moon

The moon hangs in the sky

like a carnivorous plant

Green, greedy and yellow

Whether for this night or for all time

It is a daunting, cruel leaf tender

like mimosa

It hangs in the sky for love

nothing else.

Translation: Pat Winslow and Eva Wal

Under The Bell Jar, Hommage to Sylvia Plath

extract

insomnia

blood on my calf/ razor blue carpet/ the sea breathes through diaphanous curtains/ twenty birthday roses electrocuted/ waste paper basket/ your prying/ mother/ is vain/ I have no secrets/ succumbed to shadows/ I wince/ surreptitiously inside my belly/ I race/ downhill/ wind raking through my hair/ snowfall/ contraction of neon/ a pole a point/ I conceit/ I proceed/ sturdy vigilant/ a tunnel/ a light.

Schlaflos

Blut auf meiner Wade/ rasierklingenblauer Teppich/ das Meer atmet durch Vorhänge/ durchsichtiger Stoff/ zwanzig Rosen zum Geburtstag mit Stromschlag hingerichtet/ Papierkorb/ dein Herumschnüffeln/ Mutter/ ist umsonst/ ich bin den Schatten erlegen/ zucke zusammen/ plötzlich in meinem Bauch/ ein Rennen/ bergab/ der Wind kämmt durch mein Haar/ Schneefall/ Neon-Kontraktion/ ein Pol ein Punkt/ ich begreife/ gehe voran/ beständig wachsam/ ein Tunnel/ ein Licht.

German version, own translation into German.

Three miniatures written after the reading of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. They are made of words, expressions and images that got caught in the nets of my memory where they have changed or transformed to a certain extend. I also used words that I had to look up in a dictionary.

Graphic poems

My graphic poems are some of my own poems written in mirror writing and woven into a texture, a fabric. They are not meant to be read but want to be understood as autonomous creatures, effigies behind the looking glass flying off into another dimension.