But apparently yesterday was National Biscuit Day, which set me thinking: as I am not really sure which nation was celebrating, I don’t know whether the biscuits in question are the ones you eat with morning coffee or with gravy. And even if it were definitely a British celebration, they might be cheesy biscuits rather than gingersnaps.
Now I am wondering whether Sandberg was thinking of American biscuits – the plain scones eaten with thick sausage gravy – with all the social and regional connotations that they bring to bear. Suddenly hyacinths have become the clear and unambiguous aspect of the quote: a natural Truth alongside the unnecessarily complex human view of things.
I have more hyacinths than biscuits in my archive of poems: my photos are almost entirely bereft of human figures and I think my writing also deals more with nature than human foibles – so it was tricky to find a poem to include.
In the end, though, I found a very old piece with galletas in. (Another ambiguous term, although I seem to have used it in the sense of cracker, rather than sweet biscuit.) It’s one of the few poems I originally wrote in Spanish and is definitely light verse rather than poetry.
Mi amiga la foca
Mi amiga es una foca
siempre con la boca
llena:
pronto será una ballena.Come cualquier cosa,
tanto salada como sosa,
y es una auténtica golosa.No le satisface
toda la comida que su madre hace
(quien cocina todo el día
para alimentar su voraz cría).Siempre quiere comida
incluso cuando está dormida;
no me deja sugerir
que se detenga para digerir.Sólo le interesa
la próxima hamburguesa,
espaguetis, macarrones,
aceitunas, boquerones,
pan, galletas, queso…
y todo eso.Sigue comiendo,
y tan gorda se está poniendo
que me parece que se hincha
como un globo: ¡A ver si no se pincha!
There’s an English version, too, which doesn’t have biscuits or crackers in it, as it was an early experiment in translation and I decided to focus on the tone and the general idea rather than on specific and precise details.
Eating disorder
My friend’s as fat as a cow
but she goes on eating anyhow;
there’s nothing frail
about her: she’s a whale.She’ll eat anything and everything, sweet or savoury, it
doesn’t matter, though pasta’s her favourite.Her mother has no time to do what she oughta –
always cooking for her daughter.Her appetite would take some beating:
she just goes on eating
ignoring all suggestions
about her digestion:she binges on cheese,
Devon cream teas,
mixing her toasties
with beef, yorkshires, roasties…
and all of that stuff:
it’s never enough.Now, she’s round as a ball:
as broad as she’s tall;
if she doesn’t stop
she’ll pop.
don't confuse the narrator 