Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

  • Submit a Citing
  • Map
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • User’s Guide
  • Teaching Resources
  • About

Yusef Komunyakaa, “Longitudes”

December 8, 2015 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Untitled-Bernard-Frize-Yusef-Komunyakaa-LongitudesThe New York Times Magazine published the above watercolor by Bernard Frize as a visual accompaniment to Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Longitudes”:

Longitudes

Before zero meridian at Greenwich
Galileo dreamt Dante on a ship
& his beloved Beatrice onshore,
both holding clocks, drifting apart.

His theory was right even if
he couldn’t steady the ship
on rough seas beyond star charts
& otherworldly ports of call.

‘‘But the damn blessed boat
rocked, tossing sailors to & fro
like a chorus of sea hags
in throes of ecstasy.’’

My whole world unmoors
& slips into a tug of high tide.
A timepiece faces the harbor —
a fixed point in a glass box.

You’re standing on the dock.
My dreams of you are oceanic,
& the Door of No Return
opens a galactic eye.

If a siren stations herself
between us, all the clocks
on her side, we’ll find each other
sighing our night song in the fog.

— “An Artist and a Poet Find Beauty in Solitude,” The New York Times Magazine

Share this postShare on twitter
Twitter
Share on pinterest
Pinterest
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on email
Email


Closely Tagged Posts:
Mallory Ortberg, “Dante Casually Running Into Beatrice In Art History”
Sarah Symmons, “John Flaxman and Francisco Goya: Infernos Transcribed”
W.H. Auden, “Memorial for the City”

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2015, Beatrice, Paintings, Poetry, Watercolors

Categories

  • Consumer Goods (194)
  • Digital Media (126)
  • Dining & Leisure (107)
  • Music (190)
  • Odds & Ends (91)
  • Performing Arts (361)
  • Places (132)
  • Visual Art & Architecture (416)
  • Written Word (845)

Random Post

  • The New Yorker‘s Hundred Best Lists of All Time

Frequent Tags

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 700th anniversary Abandon All Hope America American Politics Art Artists Beatrice Blogs Books California Circles of Hell Comics Dark Wood Divine Comedy England Fiction Films Florence France Games Gates of Hell Hell History Humor Illustrations Inferno Internet Italian Italy Journalism Journeys Literary Criticism Literature Love Music New York City Non-Fiction Novels Paintings Paolo and Francesca Paradise Paradiso Performance Art Poetry Politics Purgatorio Purgatory Religion Restaurants Reviews Rock Science Fiction Sculptures Social Media Technology Television Tenth Circle Theater Translations United Kingdom United States Universities Video Games Virgil

ALL TAGS »

Image Mosaic

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

Creative

 





© 2006-2023 Dante Today
research.bowdoin.edu