American poet Elaine Equi, wrote in the poem “Bent Orbit” in The Brooklyn Rail (2005):
“In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.”
The line—referring to the eight million people of New York City—has been often quoted.
Wikipedia: Elaine Equi
Elaine Equi (born 1953) is an American poet.
Equi was born in Oak Park, Illinois and grew up in the Chicago area. Since 1988 she has lived in New York with her husband, poet Jerome Sala. She currently teaches creative writing in the Master of Fine Arts programs at City College of New York and The New School.
The Brooklyn Rail
POETRY JANUARY 1ST, 2005
With or Without Music, Bent Orbit, Found in Translation
by Elaine Equi
(...)
Bent Orbit
I wind my way across a black donut hole
and space that clunks.
Once I saw on a stage,
as if at the bottom of a mineshaft,
(...)
My favorite way of remembering is to forget.
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull’s wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.
Google Books
Ripple Effect:
New and Selected Poems
By Elaine Equi
Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press
2007
Pg. 69:
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea how long a minute really is.
NPR
‘Bent Orbit’
Updated July 17, 2011 4:47 PM ET
Published April 6, 2007 3:16 PM ET
laine Equi’s newest collection, Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems, includes this new work, “Bent Orbit.” The poet August Kleinzahler says Equi’s poems “have a mystery to them that their offhandedness and surface whimsy belie. Reading her, you may find the world becomes a more unstable, various, and gently freaky place.”
(...)
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull’s wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.
Twitter
carmella
@cosmicmells
“In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea how long a minute really is.” https://instagram.com/p/21GQfwN347/
11:18 AM - 18 May 2015
The Frictionary
SUNDAY, JANUARY 03, 2016
The Frictionary # 615
(...)
5677. In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea how long a minute is. (Elaine Equi)
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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