Linda Mence’s Personification Allegories

For her final project in the MFA program at the Art Academy of Latvia, the poet and visual artist Linda Mence created illustrations of the seventeen virtues who figure in the twelfth-century morality play Ordo Virtutum, by the Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen. While working on this project, Mence realized that she found the human figure “uninteresting,” as she recently remarked in a casual conversation, and turned instead to abstract geometric patterns in order to represent the virtues.

Linda Mence, “Obedience,” illustration for Hildegard of Bingen’s “Ordo Virtutum” [click to enlarge]

In her poetry, Mence is up to something similar. This is not to say that she doesn’t represent people in her poems, but she is not concerned to depict interior lives or social realities. Instead, people appear as characters in stories that have something of the folk tale about them, evoking myth in their settings and at times mysterious events. Perhaps the story form reflects Mence’s other favored genre of writing: the children’s book. 

Mence’s poems are ambiguously allegorical in the schematism and suggestiveness of their settings and situations: a house under attack by unclear or mystical forces; a garden falling into decay; a train ride that both connects people and separates them. Human figures turn into abstract figures for something larger, almost as in Medieval personification allegory — like Hildegard’s vitrues. Or perhaps an even closer analogy is to be found in Piers Plowman, William Langland’s vision-poem that features personifications of multiple abstract concepts, heavenly and mundane, including Reason, Holy Church, Lady Meed, and Piers Plowman himself.

Mence’s figures are more opaque than Landland’s: Train Passenger, Bather, “Child with Moss Shoulders.” As with personification allegory, Mence’s poems are unaffected and largely lacking in irony. Not exactly post-lyric, they still maintain their distance from lyric poetic expression. Instead of irony or lyric expression, Mence gives us mood — ranging from melancholy and alienation, to unease and anxiety, to joy and relief — the moods of these poems, which become ours.

Kevin M. F. Platt

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desires

 

i’d like to be the one in the train compartment
the person who offers tea to a fellow traveler
without any offense to their modesty
i’d like to know how to help when
someone loses consciousness
lift them through the throng
lay them on the earth
breathe in life
slip away
i want
to be alone
in my compartment
so no one will ask me for
pocket change directions time
i want to listen in to all the voices
that don’t speak to me that are dead
want to watch the scenery indifferently
and have no one ask me what my name is
have no one lose consciousness on my watch

 

Translated from Latvian by Kevin M. F. Platt and Sintija Ozoliņa

 

 

vēlmes

 

es gribētu būt cilvēks vilciena kupejā

kurš piedāvā tēju līdzbraucējam

neievainojot viņa kautrīgumu

es gribētu prast palīdzēt

samaņu zaudējušam

iznest cauri pūlim

nolikt uz zemes

izpūst dvašu 

klusi aiziet

es gribu

būt viena

savā kupejā

lai nejautā man

sīknaudu ceļu laiku

es gribu klausīties balsīs

kas nerunā man kas mirušas

gribu vienaldzīgi vērot ainavu

un lai neviens nejautā manu vārdu

un mana klātbūtnē nezaudē samaņu

 

 

hot baths

 

Nearly all of human life then and now takes place far from hot baths.             

      —Simone Weil, Illiad: poem of force

 

washing you with warm clouds of steam

folding you in scents of oils and petals

raining rivers down your back

dripping like rain from your hair

I remember:

this room

is in a shattered house

 

making you a bed

against the stove’s warm wall

pleading cricket

don’t stop

I feel:

the door

won’t hold up

 

and now floorboards are rattling

like the bones of an old man

who just wants to die

before they come back

and now shutters are clattering 

like an old woman’s teeth

remembering stillness

in the grip of extremity

 

calling you close shielding with my hand

everywhere

that’s cold

I know

my hand’s larger than a blanket

my hand’s thin small larger than the house

larger than the skies.

 

Translated from Latvian by Kevin M. F. Platt

 

 

siltas vannas 

 

Gandrīz visa cilvēku dzīve toreiz un tagad rit tālu no siltām vannām. 

      —Simona Veila “Iliāda jeb poēma par spēku” 

 

apmazgājot tevi siltiem tvaiku mākoņiem

kas eļļās un ziedlapās smaržojoši ieņem tevi 

strūkliņām līstot pār tavu muguru

lietum no taviem matiem pilot 

es atceros 

šī ir istaba 

sagrautā namā  

 

sataisot tev gultu 

pie siltā mūrīša 

palūdzot circenim

nepārtraukt

es jaušu 

šīs durvis 

neizturēs

 

un grīdas dēļi jau drebēt sāk 

kā veca vīra kauli

kurš tik vien gribēja kā nomirt

pirms viņi atkal ienāk

un logu slēģi jau klabēt sāk 

kā vecas sievas zobi

atminoties nekustību

pārestības skavās

 

ieaicinot tevi blakus apsedzot ar plaukstu

visas tavas vietas 

kurās paliek auksti

es zinu 

mana plauksta lielāka par segu

mana plauksta maza šaura lielāka par māju

lielāka par debesjumu

 

 

children

 

child on the shelf behind glass

child on a white tablecloth

cross-stitch child

Perlmutter child

child of fine dusty silverly tracery

with only eyes

child

 

child of that house

child of that woman

one of that woman’s children

maybe number 4

child of wire tangles and 2nd uncles 

child of 3rd cousins ​​in the shed past the woodpile

child who forgets their name

and gets assigned a number

 

frostbitten child

frozen child

juices flow but you can't hear it

child

who’ll always be a two-year-old

tied with pale bindings

to the little room

 

unseen child

looks out the window

at passing

buses

on the map there’s no such place 

there’s nearly no such child

memories seethe

in the heart’s shadow

 

child from the springwaters

child with elk horns

child with moss shoulders

child with lichen eyebrows

come visit child

visit our home

child

 

Translated from Latvian by Kevin M. F. Platt

 

 

bērni 

 

bērns sekcijā aiz stikla

bērns uz baltā galdauta 

krustdūriena bērns 

perlamutra bērns 

putekļainu sidrabainu smalku tīklu bērns

tikai ar acīm 

bērns 

 

bērns no tām mājām 

tās sievietes bērns

viens no tās sievietes bērniem

laikam 4. 

vadu un 2. pakāpes onkuļu bērns 

3. pakāpes brālēnu bērns šķūnītī aiz malkas

bērns kurš aizmirst vārdu 

un viņam piešķir ciparu

 

nosarmojis bērns

sastinguma bērns

sulas tek bet nedzird

bērns 

kurš vienmēr paliks divgadnieks

bālu valgu piesaistīts

mazajai istabai 

 

neredzamais bērns

skatās pa logu

uz garām ejošiem 

autobusiem

tādas vietas kartē nav

tāda bērna teju nav

vāras atmiņas 

sirds paēnā

 

bērns no avota 

bērns ar aļņa ragiem

bērns ar sūnu pleciem

bērns ar ķērpju uzacīm

paviesojies bērns

paviesojies mūsmājās

bērns

 

 

Daira’s Garden

 

more and more Daira's garden ebbs

a green low tide blue sea of widow violets

 

I’m wary walking across the past beds

making way for other roots

 

a glass greenhouse—tomatoes lit by chandelier

clatters when Daira comes, steps heavily

 

panes pulled out piecemeal—paintings from rotting frames

massed in a heap, awaiting a collector

 

garden wrecked without one tool

as days became idle damp cool

 

the garden fell in on itself, a sigh only it can hear

and sits now on its throne of humility 

 

Translated from Latvian by Kevin M. F. Platt

 

 

Dairas dārzs

 

Dairas dārzs arvien arvien atkāpjas

kā bēgumā zaļa un atraitnīšu zila jūra

 

es sargājos iet pāri bijušām dobēm

kas atdevušas vietu citām saknēm 

 

stikla siltumnīca – lustra apmirdz tomātus 

šķind kad Daira nāk smagi liekot soļus 

 

pa vienam izņēma stiklus – ik gleznu no puvušā rāmja

saliktas kaudzē tās gaida kolekcionāru

 

dārzu nojauca bez neviena darbarīka 

dienas kļuva vēsas lietainas dīkas 

 

dārzs nokāpa sevī kā nopūta ko dzird vien pats 

un sēd tagad pats savas pazemības tronī

 

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