A Remembrance of Annette

“My songs will live, long after I have disappeared.” Ian Hamilton Finlay took this quote from Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and had it chiseled onto a rectangular sandstone plaque. The plaque was then mounted four meters above the Droste family grave on the trunk of a poplar in the old Überwasser-Friedhof.
As a poet himself, Ian Hamilton Finlay condenses his writings down to the point that some poems are no longer than a single word. To achieve their full effect, these poems are inscribed on sandstone tablets – much like the Annette epitaph – and placed in the context of nature. As is the case with the Droste-Hülshoff quote, the words’ meanings only truly unfold through their interaction with their surroundings. Contemporary viewers may question Annette’s self-assuredness in the longevity of her words and read it more as an expression of the desire to endure beyond one’s individual existence. However, this seems to be reserved for nature and the cycle of life and death that is presented poetically and melancholically in the old cemetery.

Additional information: www.skulptur-projekte.de

Further reading:
Skulptur-Projekte 1987 in Münster, eds. Klaus Bußmann and Kasper König, Cologne 1987, pp. 80–86.