When reading, Marilyn Hacker gently tilts her head back, closes her eyes and says the words aloud. It's an invocation to anyone within earshot.
Beyond reading from rote, this is a felt poetry of devotion and pleasure. Perhaps the words themselves invoke Hacker to speak them, rather than she, them. So now, when reading 'Essay on Departure' aloud, it is with this salutation of closed eyes I, too, smile and say you take the present tense along and mean it.Â
Marilyn Hacker, 19th Nov 2015. Culture Lab, NCLA. Photos my own.
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