Richard W Halperin, an American poet now living in Paris, has published a new poem that uses Shakespeare's Hamlet as a lens to examine the nature of art and the human condition. The poem, titled 'Now, Mother, What’s the Matter?', appears in the New Poems section of his collection All the Tattered Stars: Selected and New Poems, released by Salmon Poetry in 2023 to mark his 80th birthday.
Halperin draws on Hamlet's address to his mother Gertrude, a line freighted with accusation, but strips it of its original context to explore broader themes. 'Only the monsters do not have troubled hearts. Life is for troubled hearts. Art is for troubled hearts,' he writes. The poet suggests that every character in Hamlet is troubled, and that art allows troubled hearts to encounter themselves.
The poem also references the Angelus bell and biblical passages, including Christ's words from Matthew 22:21 about rendering unto Caesar. Halperin writes: 'I render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s — everything is troubled there and, if I am lucky, Caesar is troubled. I render unto God the things that are God’s and feel — want to feel? — do feel that God is troubled. I also render unto art.'
Born in Chicago to an Irish mother and a Russian-American father, Halperin spent his early childhood in New York. He taught briefly at Hunter College before moving into education administration, eventually working for Unesco in Paris, where he now resides. His work shows the influence of the New York School, with a light texture that belies his serious engagement with art's function and power.
