AUTHOR NARRATION
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Read by the author in the original English.
Matter Changes StateEnglish narration
POEM + CONSTELLATION
Matter Changes State
A POEM THAT CROSSES OVER
The Poem in Translation
Most of Clock Counting resists faithful translation. This was one of the few poems I felt could cross into French with most of itself intact.
Part of the reason is its economy. The poem is short, its grammar is direct, and its movement from dissolution to crystallization does not depend on layers of English wordplay. Even its invented word, diamondization, becomes the equally intelligible French diamantisation.
That does not make the translation word-for-word. The poem’s quieter structure lives in cadence and recurring sounds, so the French occasionally changes the grammar and wording in order to preserve this musicality.
READINGS IN UNISON
These complete readings were aligned in time so that corresponding passages begin together. Start them with one gesture and hear the two versions share the same pulse.
THIS POEM AMONG THE OTHERS
States of Friendship
Two particular friendships lie behind this poem’s transformations—and connect its imagery to two other poems in the collection.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
When I wrote this poem, I had particular people in mind. I was gradually drifting away from my friendship with the man to whom “1725 Jefferson Park Avenue” is dedicated, one of my best friends in college. Around the same time, another friend—the person addressed in “Three Strikes”—asked me to be in his wedding party.
Being chosen as one of the few people who would stand with him at his wedding was very meaningful to me in that it confirmed the deep connection I felt toward him was mutual. In the poem’s private logic, he is the person associated with “diamondization”: a friendship crystallizing, strengthening, and becoming durable. To this day, he is one of my best friends, and I don't think that will change.
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