Phantasia
Sharim Jones ‘22
[Cloudy / Ethereal] Imagination
[Draped] in the colors of ephemeral inspiration and works unseen.
Twin to [Knowing] Memory,
Among those born of Earth and Sky, her share is small.
Hers is no great expanse,
But Father Zeus gives to her free rein in all the cosmos.
Unknown to many but a stranger to none,
Starry-eyed Imagination is companion
To all whose minds have ever wandered,
To all who have [perceived images and ideas untouched by the senses].
When, in the assembly, the poet sings
the deeds of kings and deathless gods,
She is there in the midst of all [who hear]
[Whispering / breathing] into their minds vivid dreams,
Beautiful visions to complete her sister’s truth.
Indeed it was she who taught her nieces to inspire the hearts of men.
Aid to the artisan, oracle, and philosopher alike,
It is she who gives form to the unknown and reveals that which is yet to be seen.
Even among the Immortals is her company and council prized,
Most beloved Imagination
The old man,
Recalling the deeds and things dear from his youth,
Reclines to breathe his last.
His hands clasped
By Memory and Imagination,
He is led away into nostalgia.
Returning to the black-blue deep a final time,
[The current flows behind.]
Sailing [over / through] waves of memories--
Some vivid and clear as the sunlit sea,
Others remain murky and dark as [starry] night.
It is on those dark waters where Memory fails that
Dauntless Imagination commands (kubernaein) the vessel,
Leading both Memory and man
through the [wondrous and terrible (deinos)] unknown
On that [bitter-sweet / painful] journey home.
Some have said that Imagination is no sister to Memory
Rather, she is old
Older than both Earth and Sky--
The first breath of the yawning Abyss:
Imagination
Primordial and Eternal,
Sculptor (schematizousa) of the Cosmos.
My goal in this piece was to create a sort of theogonic hymn to a personified Imagination, in which I would outline her relations, roles, and capacities. In this way I wanted to loosely emulate Hesiod. In some ways, I hope that it bears a resemblance to those ancient texts, becoming something like an extra puzzle piece or maybe, more fittingly, an eidolon.
I was inspired by one of the last discussions that we had in our seminar. Discussing nostalgia and totems of memory encouraged me to think about the roots of the word nostalgia (nostos - a return journey; algos - pain), but specifically nostos as a returning journey. The conversations about memory and nostalgia, resulted in the revelation that imagination could be seen as part of the process of memory. At times in his classically inspired films, Pasolini would seem to jump from present to past and vice versa, leaving impressions that almost filled the space between the classical and more modern history. This sort of patchwork is what I believe imagination does in its work with memory.
I chose imagination as my subject because of its role in the creative process. In my opinion, the creation of myth is an act of cultural osmosis and crystallization; however, at one point it was composed. Even if the myth in question is founded on real events, elements of it were inevitably imagined and created. I also believe that if a myth were to be transmitted, it would be due to both memory and imagination.
Throughout the poem I have included, or rather, I have left particular words or phrases in square brackets. I use these brackets and other typological markings as relics of my compositional process. Serendipitously, they may also resemble a translator’s choice at times, invoking a strange liquidity between my role as author and perceived translator. In leaving these unsmoothed edges and details, I wanted to allow the reader to experience the other imagined paths of the piece.