Look at me, by Syed Arsalan Naqvi. Image courtesy of ArtChowk the Gallery.
My grandmother knew
borders are like seams:
they must be sewed
tightly to hold, and
doubled back so as not
to unravel. Every dress
she ever sewed had a
secret pocket: for
dreams, memories, the
faces of the beloved
forever falling away
into the distance —
Coins sewn into the
hem weigh us down, she
said, drag us to our
graves.
~ Ottilie Mulzet
Poet’s note: ‘Seams’ is about a grandmother about whom I know practically next to nothing, except that she was a seamstress in Hungary and worked in Budapest before immigrating to the New World sometime before WWII. I have often wondered what it was like for her to make that momentous journey across the ocean – as far as I know, alone – and her life in emigration. She remains a hazy figure, without outlines – I only know that I must carry something of her in me.
Ottilie Mulzet translates from Hungarian and Mongolian, and writes literary criticism. Her translation of László Krasznahorkai’s ‘Seiobo There Below’ won the Best Translated Book Award in 2014, and in 2015, she shared the Translator’s Prize with poet and fellow translator George Szirtes for László Krasznahorkai’s lifetime achievement Man Booker International Prize. Forthcoming translations include ‘Lazarus’, by Gábor Schein (Seagull Books, 2017), and ‘The Homecoming of Baron Wenckheim’ by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, 2018). In addition, she is completing a dissertation about Mongolian riddles, and a book of translations of Mongolian Buddhist legends.
