New Directions mourns the loss of Nathaniel Tarn (1928-2024)—American poet, essayist, anthropologist, and translator. He published some thirty books and booklets in various genres, including five with New Directions: Lyrics For The Bride Of God (1975), Ins & Outs Of The Forest Rivers (2008), The Beautiful Contradictions (2013), Gondwana (2017), and The Hölderliniae (2021). Fellow New Directions author Forrest Gander described Tarn as "one of the most elegant and formidably intelligent minds in contemporary poetry. His books open up a means for us to be delighted again to belong to this world."
DEFINITION
What you are put into
without permission asked, and taken out of
without permission asked
What is never explained
neither for a before
nor, more importantly, as after—
so that the purpose of it
never revealed
haunts the whole pass called "time"
in this you are supposed
to find the thing called "joy,"
to thank whatever maker
you can serve up
to your imagination,
to change all visibles,
make beautiful a manifest corruption,
hear, speak, sing, paint
beaty
into every equation,
to elevate your tate,
update the swallowing
into a Paradiso
Flag of the namesless.
For three, death is impossible:
witness the music.
For two, idem:
witness the music,
For one, possessor of a name,
it can be done.
Published