| Title | The Bride |
| Artist / Creator | Gwido Zlatkes |
| Press Name | Vigoda Press |
| Artist's Nationality | Polish/American |
| Place of Publication | Riverside, CA |
| Publication Date | 2012 |
| Author of Text | Aleksander Wat |
| Contributors | Czesław Miłosz, Leonard Nathan, Ann Frenkel |
| Medium / Materials | Letterpress/polymer plates |
| Paper Stock | Bhutan Bleached White Tsharsho |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 8.5 x 12 inches |
| Edition Size | Edition of 50 |
| Signed & Numbered | Signed by the printer |
A poem by Aleksander Wat translated to the English by Czesław Miłosz and Leonard Nathan; set by Ann Frenkel to the music “Komm süßer Tod” by Johann Sebastian Bach. To celebrate Ann’s fiftieth birthday on March 14, 2012.
The poem can be viewed performed by Ann Frenkel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zsIlTyWmV8
Text of Poem:
Let him not unveil her with his eye before he washes it in the light of morning In the snow of a distant mountain In a gentle hill of herbs In the stream of cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach Let him not put his hand on her before he cleanses it of violence From blood Spilled Assented to Before he engraves it with tenderness Good deeds With the toil of laboring in earth the mother With playing a harpsichord or ocarina Let him not bring his lips close to her before he rinses off the lie Before he drinks from the source of live water Before he burns them pure in live fire Before he sanctifies them in the tabernaculum of grace and sweetness
Artist Bio
Aleksander Wat (1900-1967) was a personal friend and mentor to the Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. A scion of a prominent Jewish family, in the 1920s he became an avant-garde artist with communist leanings. Imprisoned in the Soviet Union during WWII, he had a mystical illumination in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison: he saw Stalin as Satan incarnated in history. In 1953 Wat suffered a brain hemorrhage that resulted in recurring debilitating pain which he interpreted as punishment for his involment in communism. The poem Poślubiona (“The Bride”) was written in 1967 for the poet’s wife as a gift for the 40th anniversary of their wedding. Frank L. Vigoda is a translator, printer and proprietor of VigodaPress in Riverside, CA.