I was recently trying to write a poem about the Holocaust and I decided to use hair as a way into the subject, as I felt quite inadequate in addressing it. Hair, all its good and bad aspects, the amazing and the terrifying. How indulgent then to find Franziska Füchsl, and specifically her entire book devoted to hair. But please don’t get out your combs or brushes. Let all the entanglement excite you. Just follow the trail of the hair…
here, here, and ’ere. She, stiffening into her dice. She, prepared to appear in print. Her face, breast, hips knees and toes, her shoulders, arms, hands, fingers pasted and pressed: she, a cliché. Pressed to replicate. ’er black face-flecks, ’er black breast-flecks, ’er black hip-flecks, ’er black knee-flecks, ’er black toe-flecks, ’er black shoulder-flecks, ’er black arm-flecks, ’er black wrist-flecks, ’er black knuckle-flecks, ’er black nail-flecks to disseminate. Press did not miss her barycenter - - dumper dumper. A mattress and a pullover to tuck her. es wead scho glei duhumper es wead scho glei noght drum kim I za diaha her the hei'hond af d'woght wü singa a liahadl the leapling the kloan du me'hatst not schlohofm I hear di nu woan
Somewhat is excelling exclamation, somewhat is exclaimed into existence. with the force of a cloudburst, ’er ’air pastes ’er ’ead. Skeins, thrums cut, reddish, are felt for ropes tightening our bemusement in sachets ’he pastes ’er ears with ’er ’air, sucked […] Wallowing in ooze - - - wallowing in mire - - - wallowing in stillness - - - wallowing in ifs - - - walloping in ooze - - - walloping in mire - - - walloping up silence - - - swallowing my ifs - - - lowering my hair - - - lowering my hair into ooze - - - lowering my hair into this mire’s ooze - - - lowering my hair into silence, absolute - - - covering that silence with ifs [...] If the rest were a story, the story’d go: to wraiths, were witnesses necessitate faith. I have seen this face ’he’s beautiful: ’ere ’ere ’ere and here When did you accept to dissimilate? - - - To the rumpus
By Franziska Füchsl
Written in English
From MY HAARSCHWUND
By Franziska Füchsl
Published by Sampson Low (2020)
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Franziska Füchsl lives in Vienna and Kiel. She studied German and English philology in Vienna and Sprache und Gestalt (Language and Form) at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel. She is a member of the Vienna-based translation group Versatorium.