neyde lantyer

Inspired by the poem “Damege” by English poet Josephine Hart, the work referes to the search for one’s own place in the world and in life, a place that matches one’s inner feelings. By touching the condition of being displaced, the poem eventually can offer a reflection on diaspora, migration and exhile.

Audio installation with the poem being read in English and Portuguese by a gruop of people.


DAMAGE

There is an internal landscape,
a geography of the soul;
we search for its outlines
all our lives.

Those who are lucky enough
to find it easy like water over a stone,
onto its fluid contours,
and are home.
Some find it
in the place of their birth;
others may leave a seaside town, parched,

and find themselves refreshed
in the desert.
There are those born in rolling
countryside
who are really only at easy
in the intense and busy loneliness
of the city.
For some,
the search is for the imprint of
another;
a child or a mother, a grandfather
or a brother,
a lover, a husband, a wife,
or a foe.

We may go through our lives
happy or unhappy,
successful or unfulfilled,
loved or unloved,
without ever standing cold with
the shock of recognition,
without
ever feeling the agony
as the twisted iron in our soul
unlocks itself
and we slip at last
into place.

_Josephine Hartr