Sylvia Moss
Sylvia Moss is the author of Cities in Motion (1987), a collection of poems selected by Derek Walcott for The National Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in Russian translation in Six Poets and Foreign Literature. With Izabella Mizrachi, she has completed an English translation of the work of four contemporary St. Petersburg poets. She is also the Editor of China 5000 Years: Innovation and Transformation in the Arts (Guggenheim Museum) and co-author of a book on human communication.
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Cities in MotionPoemsFrom"Circus"
Often they seem to be falling forward
but I pretend not to notice
how well they use their bodies:
the girl, that tall delicate boy,
even the father in pink satin –
ardent, flashy. Now something scares me
and I turn away.
In the dream
they walk the beach –
my children and their father –
equally exposed, ridiculous suits
in the same ice-cream colors.
Cities in Motion:Poems -
Cities in MotionPoemsFrom"Report From the Village"
Terrible things are happening in slow motion:
a child turns in a low drifting fall,
a man finds cover in a doorway
where inside his shop the pharmacist
slumps over scales on the counter,
and a girl – bright skirt, hair flying –
tries to run, tries to scream.
Then in the street people
are quiet and figures swinging
from the terraces are quiet
and she is trying to open her mouth
as the officer from the mountains explains:
We did not massacre anyone.
We just surrounded the town
and did not let anyone surrender.
Cities in Motion:Poems -
Cities in MotionPoemsFrom"Beggarman"
A cane swings through the street
announcing him. He chooses something bent,
disfiguring – that branch
cut from a blackthorn tree
is polished and well made.
He dares you pity him.
Blackthorn, blackthorn,
have I become someone
who needs a crooked stick?
Cities in Motion:Poems
“Moss's poems . . . are deftly cut fragments of an imaginary larger structure that stands behind her wispy, oblique lines . . . Moss has a talent for reduction to pure essences as well as for translation of other art forms into poetry marked by her own fine sensibility . . . subjects include Brahms, Glenn Gould, Sargent and Turner, all haunting artists whose works, like Moss's, suggest an unheard music.” —Publishers Weekly [on Cities in Motion]
“ . . . the work of a thoughtful woman honing her craft. The tone of the poems is melancholy . . . Themes of loss, regret, fear, love, and retribution are explored in settings both ancient and modern, and always with the help of an unsettling imagination.” —Library Journal [on Cities in Motion]