“If You Only Knew”
Robert Desnos
1926
translated by William Kulik
English translation © William Kulik
Lines from this poem accompanied the painting Far From (1964) in the exhibition "Dorothea Tanning: Murmurs" at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, organized in collaboration with Alison Jacques Gallery, London (May 11 - June 27, 2015). The show explored echoes of myths and legends in Tanning’s work through poetry, with examples of poems that were especially meaningful to the artist.
J. D. McClatchy wrote a tribute to Dorothea Tanning for the show and recorded the poems included in the gallery. View a gallery of images here and listen to his reading of the full poem below.
