LOVE: On Fulfilled, Unrequited, and Faded Love

Poems
Edition Milo 2006

Love and the flip side of love is what Susanne Ayoub wanted to describe. And what was left of it: “What love is after many years.” The subjunctive plays a surprisingly rare role in these poems about relationships: “How fine if we were clouds / slow and bright.” Rather, the strength of Ayoub’s imagery results from the sequence of the words. Just as it is mostly not the vocabulary here that constitutes the lyricism, but its typesetting. the one exception is a playful poem titled “muchter & totter” (“maughter & dother”), in which “fearmild,” “slimfrail,” “comorose,” and “swearoathy,” a mother-daughter relationship is set adance by nothing but a string of neologisms. Almost all of the poems came into her head while walking, Susanne Ayoub says, and although they all deal with love, they are ultimately the fruits of solitary hours. (Edith Ulla Gasser, quoted from the foreword of the book of poems)

1001 ERINNERUNG

I long for him that I love
when I see him I am still
I lower my eyes
in the shelter of my feelings
I wait till he follows.

Susanne Ayoub und Alfred Hrdlicka in der Galerie Hilger Foto Martina Judt
Susanne Ayoub and Alfred Hrdlicka in Hilger Gallery Photo: Martina Judt

 

 

 

 

 

Translation Geoffrey Howes

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