Postcard

by Hester Knibbe. Translated by Jacquelyn Pope.

You were there. The glossy card
depicts what you described: a world
so vast that it slides from all four sides
of the card—just like the way you

disappeared from the landscape: wanderer
who simply stepped across
the horizon. The world on the card is significant

only for the way you look at us, word for word,
backwards. But your handwriting
has faded, too, the light of day steals
the nightblue ink of your pen. As if you

must be read in increasing quiet,
in order to hear, perhaps,
how you read it aloud.

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About the Authors:

Hester Knibbe is one of the leading Dutch poets writing today. She has published fifteen collections of poems, including Archaïsch de dieren (2014), which was awarded the VSB Poetry Prize.

American poet Jacquelyn Pope is a widely published poet and translator and author of Watermark from Marsh Hawk Press (2005). Her translation of Hester Knibbe’s poetry has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, a PEN/Heim Translation Grant, the Academy of American Poets, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.