—Damien Hirst; Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution; 1991
What we did not expect to find were my father’ssecret poems, saved deep in his computer’s memory.Writing, he wrote, is like painting a picturein someone else’s mind. He developed tender imagesdepicting moments of exchange—tipping for a haircut,a farmer’s wife bringing him lunch after a morningof baling hay. All art is a matter of regulating symbol,proportion, and distance, one theory goes.An artist requested a very large shark—“Big enough to eat you.” Years later, the sharkbehind the glass deteriorated and was replaced.The critics argued whether it remained the samepiece of art. An obvious and lazy question.When my father died, his ashes came backin a black plastic box where they stayed untilwe buried him—our messy interment, windand shaky hands spilling him everywhere. Afterthe service,…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2024