The painter choosing watercolor has gone under. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, how long does she have before what's seen is un, so quickly must she capture her subject at rest, soft-bodied as a medusa, lucent, long-armed, adrift. Sea-blue the blue she's in, see-through the watery hues the artist gives the model she dreams is dreaming herself a girl, a bell among bells in a bloom of moon jellies until, three Mississippi, four, she'll move, which she must soon enough, move like a fugue trailing herself before the woman puts down her brush.
“Watercolor” was written with a beautiful watercolor by the English painter Chantal Joffe in mind. The painting is titled “Ishbel Reclining.” I hope a reader doesn’t need to know the actual watercolor in order to experience the dreamlike state I intended: one in keeping with my vision of a woman/girl/artist intertwined with the bell-shaped moon jellies that drift on ocean currents.
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"For me, the connection between poetry and music largely lies in the interaction between structure and play. This is especially true for the ghazal. The ghazal can be described as a rigid form for its insistence on that end-line refrain, but it offers so much room for experimentation between points A and B."
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"But Zewdu’s poem is all about lightness and wit: he mixes 12 syllable yewel bet lines with 6 syllable half-lines, making the poem very light and quick on its feet; he subverts the traditional aabb rhyme scheme and keeps readers a bit off-balance with a/bb/ccc/d/ee. So the task of translating this poem is to convey Zewdu’s clear message while staying true to his wit and lightness."
