A circular proposal: A London roundel poem
I’ve been in Antwerp this week. One of the places I swung by was Museum aan de Stroom.
I was particularly taken by this note at the entrance:
Belgian novelist Tom Lanoye was asked to write a text of no more than 60 characters. Taking the ‘A’, ‘R’, and ‘W’ from Antwerp he developed a circular poem that reads:
Where water keeps watch
And what was there of worth
Was later preserved as
(Wares / Where…)
Each word can be taken as either the beginning or the end of the poem. (You can find an alternative translation (and more about the project) here.
The medallions look like this:
Which leads to the inevitable question: why don’t we have one of these for London? Something tight and repeatable — and London is the true home of the roundel, I would argue. One, perhaps, for the Museum of London to commission as it moves to its new site.
