Sholeh Wolpé
Poeta, escritora, editora y traductora. Nació en Irán y pasó la mayor parte de su adolescencia en Trinidad y Gran Bretaña antes instalarse en Estados Unidos. En 2014 fue galardonada con el PEN/Heim award, en 2013 con el Midwest Book Award y en 2012 con el Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize. Wolpé ha publicado tres libros de poesía, dos traducciones y es editora de tres antologías.
La prestigiosa Poetry Foundation ha dicho de ella: “El verso libre de Wolpé (conciso, valiente, a veces irónico) explora los territorios de la violencia, la cultura y el género. Muchos de sus poemas tratan la violenta situación de Oriente Medio, sin embargo, de forma a la vez desafiante y lúdica no permite que la muerte imponga su soberbia.”
El primer libro de Wolpé, The Scar Saloon, recibió esta excelente crítica de Billy Collins “son poemas que iluminan algo que todos tenemos en común.” El poeta y novelista Chris Abani dijo que los poemas eran “políticos, satíricos, valientes en medio de la guerra, la tiranía y la pérdida … transforman la experiencia en la magia de lo imaginado.”
De su segundo libro, Rooftops of Tehran, la poeta Nathalie Handal dijo que los poemas eran “tan vivos como atrevidos” y Richard Katrovas escribió que esta publicación era “un evento único: un importante libro de poesía.”
De su último poemario, Keeping Time With Blue Hyacinths, la revista Shelf Awareness escribió: “con gran talento esta poeta irano-estadounidense habla del amor, de la pérdida del amor, de la belleza, la guerra y los fantasmas del pasado.”
La traducción que Wolpé hizo del emblemático poeta iraní Forugh Farrokhzah recibió en 2010 el codiciado premio Lois Roth de traducción. Los jueces valoraron que “podían percibir con ojos nuevos los poemas persas de Forugh.” Alicia Ostriker alabó la traducción porque era “hipnótica en su fuerza y belleza”. Willis Barnstone dijo que era “extravagantemente majestuosa”, hasta tal punto que “resucita a Forugh”.
Wolpé ha traducido junto con Mohsen Emadi el poema de Walt Whitman Song of Myself. Esta traducción, un encargo del Programa Internacional de la Universidad de Iowa, puede verse en la website de la universidad y será pronto publicada en Irán.
Las antologías de Wolpé han recibido el unánime elogio de la crítica. Robert Olen Butler declaró que Breaking the Jaws of Silence “es una colección profundamente humana y estéticamente estimulante.” La obra The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and Its Exhiles, galardonada con el Midwest Book Award, incluye varias traducciones de Wolpé, y fue descrita por Sam Hamil como “un espléndido regalo” que “ilumina los más profundos vínculos y aspiraciones del ser humano.” Joy Harjo escribió: “¿Qué demonio puede resistirse a la belleza y verdad de estos poetas? ¿Qué corazón no se abrirá al escuchar estos poemas?”
El número de Atlanta Rreview dedicado a Irán y editado por Wolpé fue el volumen más vendido de esa revista. Wolpé es también coordinadora regional de Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscape from The Modern Middle East (editado por Reza Aslan) y asidua colaboaradora de Los Angeles Review of Books.
La obra de Wolpé ha sido traducida a varios idiomas; sus poemas y relatos han sido incluidos en numerosas antologías tanto de Estados Unidos como de otros países. Wolpé ha dado clases de poesía y traducción literaria en el máster de Stonecoast y, frecuentemente, participa en festivales, programas internacionales y diversas actividades universitarias.
Vive (la mayor parte del tiempo) en Los Ángeles.
“Que las culturas y las gentes dialoguen a través de la poesía, no de los políticos.”
–Sholeh Wolpé
Preludio
En la pausa que separa las lluvias de la primavera
una mujer hace piruetas en un campo.
Su piel es de mil espejos.
The Green of Iran
No departures here.
In Tehran out and in are closed,
under and over, stained.
Yet how green is the green of her sky.
The clouds bleed this green,
green the river, fields of rice,
the moss that grows
on Alborz mountain rocks.
The earth births this green
that the ants carry through
the cracks of Evin’s walls.
The birds shit green
on the turbans of bearded men.
Green is the green of this land,
the poplars lining parks,
green inked letters of lovers
holding hands in dark alleys
where green is the color of eyes,
the smell of dust swept clean.
Green is the ears of geraniums
on windowsills, and feet
of roses in backyards,
and the color of ponds
populated with green-
scaled fish, and frogs who sing
to the night dreams of green.
Prisoner in a Hole
Barely twenty-five, he smells
of yesterday’s spit and vomit,
black beard droops in clumps
from his drawn, sun-savaged face.
Hanging from a string
around his neck: a small holy book.
This man was once a child
held against the breast of a mother
who kissed his small meaty hands
that smelled of milk and tears.
“I never seen such days as this”
—Bahram (Pakistani 14-year-old held in an Afghan prison)
Like the pied piper
the mullah drives his battered truck
through dusty villages, his loudspeaker
singing: Join the battle against the infidels.
Fight for Jihad and live eternally with Allah.
Lift up your guns for Him and you shall never die.
Barefoot boys ragged, hungry
from years of hard soil, follow him
dancing into the straps of loaded guns,
pirouetting into caves and broken buildings
And the boys end up in a land not their own
but are told God is everywhere.
Many die. Others disappear
into dark prison bowels
where each day if you are 12, twelve filthy men
one after another . . .
if you are 14, then fourteen is your lot.
A father sells tea from a cart,
one cup at a time, washes the tiles
of a mosque with a yellow bar of soap
to earn the ransom the soldiers exact.
Every night in his dreams his son stands, calling:
Father, I never seen such days as this.
Pickles and Donuts
Cold basements remind me of the dead
fruit my mother smothered in sugar, the phallic
pickles souring in tight lipped jars.
I keep my school uniform stained, my
long hair pulled back tight, my walnut
breasts cloaked with baggy shawls,
tell my friend next door, about the red
jam donut beneath our skirts, teach her
the waist twisting dance of wrapping childhood's
curtain around her body so soon unfolded
like voodoo air from an uncapped perfume bottle.
I breathe in books that turn my eyelashes
to blue feathers, my eyelid’s veins into delicate
wing bones that flap and lift, travel me
to an island house on stilt legs.
She eats the stone pages of an old Quran,
comes of age at dusk where bombs fall
on paved roads and the sky rains scalding
lava that streams and streams, carries her
to the sharp edge of the world.
I Am Neda
Leave the Basiji bullet in my heart,
fall to prayer in my blood,
and hush, father
--I am not dead.
More light than mass,
I flood through you,
breathe with your eyes,
stand in your shoes, on the rooftops,
in the streets, march with you
in the cities and villages of our country
shouting through you, with you.
I am Neda—thunder on your tongue.
Azza – The ceremony of grief
Women in black rock
their bodies, beat their chests,
girl-children serve in glass
tumblers steaming auburn tea,
baklava on plastic trays.
Here, tears flow like streams,
wet the ornate Persian rugs
and in the courtyard
where she poured kerosene on her head, struck a match,
silver fish roam the small pond, oblivious.
On the other side of the yard, men sit
with hookah pipes, crack salted pistachios.
The butcher who was to take the girl as bride
sits on an embroidered cushion, strokes his twisting gray mustache.
Jerusalem, August 10, 2001
Rabbis rush out into blood-
splashed streets in white gloves
picking up pieces
from the sidewalks
dusty hoods of dented cars.
A hand, a toe, a nose.
For to rest in peace
one must be buried whole.
A child, her tears thinning
the blood on her cheeks,
stumbles over bodies, calling out
to her mother and when she finds her
she cannot fathom why her mother will not rise,
take her hand and lead her away.
A man bleeds from a gap
between his legs as he begs
for help from a soldier
who’s really just a boy in uniform.
The boy throws down his gun
vomits not just the breakfast
his mother made him that morning.
Will the rabbis see this and rush over,
pick up with their white gloves
the tenderness of this boy splashed
on the sidewalk and put it back
inside him so he can be whole again?
It's a Man's World To the End of the End
I am a woman. Simply.
To look at me is a sin —
I must be veiled.
To hear my voice is a temptation
that must be hushed.
For me to think is a crime
so I must not be schooled.
I am to bear it all
and die quietly, without complaint.
Only then can I be admitted to the court of God
where I must repose naked on a marble cloud
feed virtuous men succulent grapes
pour them wine from golden vats
and murmur songs of love…