Epitaphs

In Sedona Az, I teach a Calligraphy Workshop at the library twice a year.
This June 11, we explored a personal epitaph
chose a favorite hand designed alphabet
and illustrated our statement.
Behold Victoria Norton’s handiwork in the library’s quiet study room
and my InDesign file.

Here are some notes on famous last words from some people you might know:
The last words of Luciano Pavarotti

The Italian tenor Pavarotti (1935 – 2007) was both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. His rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessum Dorma’ at the 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy has become probably the best-known operatic performance of our era.

His final words were:
I believe that a life lived for music is an existence spent wonderfully, and this is what I have dedicated my life to.

Background to Luciano Pavarotti’s last words
Pavarotti, already in poor health, gave a (pre-recorded) performance at the opening ceremony of the Turin Winter Olympics in February 2006. In July the same year, while touring his ‘Worldwide Farewell’ performances, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was determined to complete the farewell tour, but was unable to and died in August 2007. The words above were the last words that he spoke, to his manager, Terri Robson.

Becket, Thomas (c.1119-1179) “I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace.” (One version of his last words.)

Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) “… the fog is rising.”

Gandhi, Indira (1917-1984) “I don’t mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.” (Said the night before she was assassinated by Sikh militants.)

Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862)
`Have you made your peace with your God?’
`I never quarreled with my God.’
`But aren’t you concerned about the next world?’
`One world at a time.’
(Discussion with his aunt on his deathbed)

Emily Dickinson: “Called back.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty I’m Free at Last.”

The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book,
its contents worn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding) lies here,
food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
for it will, as he believed, appear once more
in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author.
Benjamin Franklin

A Pavarotti Visit

 

Calligraphy by Jeanne Poland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honda Pavarotti

by Tony Hoagland

I’m driving on the dark highway

when the opera singer on the radio
opens his great mouth
and the whole car plunges down the canyon of his throat.

So the night becomes an aria of stars and exit signs
as I steer through the galleries
of one dilated Italian syllable after another.

I love the passages in which the rich flood of the baritone
strains out against the walls of the esophagus,
and I love the pauses
in which I hear the tenor’s flesh labor to inhale

enough oxygen to take the next plummet
up into the chasm of the violins.
In part of the song, it sounds as if the singer
is being squeezed by an enormous pair of tongs

while his head and legs keep kicking.
In part of the song, it sounds as if he is
standing in the middle of a coliseum,
swinging a 300-pound lion by the tail,

the empire of gravity
conquered by the empire of aerodynamics,
the citadel of pride in flames
and the citizens of weakness
celebrating their defeat in chorus,

joy and suffering made one at last,
joined in everything a marriage is alleged to be,
though I know the woman he is singing for
is dead in a foreign language on the stage beside him,
though I know his chain mail is made of silver-painted plastic
and his mismanagement of money is legendary,
as I know I have squandered
most of my own life

in a haze of trivial distractions,
and that I will continue to waste it.
But wherever I was going, I don’t care anymore,
because no place I could arrive at

is good enough for this, this thing made out of experience
but to which experience will never measure up.
And that dark and soaring fact
is enough to make me renounce the whole world

or fall in love with it forever.

“Honda Pavarotti” by Tony Hoagland, from Donkey Gospel. © Graywolf Press, 1998. Reprinted with permission.