Camille T. Dungy
Poeta. Nació en Denver. EE.UU.
Autora de Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison.
Editora de Naturaleza Negra: cuatro siglos de poesía de naturales afro-americanos (Universidad de Georgia Press, 2009), coeditor de Del Fishouse: antología de poemas que cantan, rima, Resound, Syncopate, en el que se escribe usando aliteraciones, o simplemente “Gran Sonido” ( Persea, 2009) y es editor adjunto de Gathering Ground:: Celebración del Decenio Cave Canem (University of Michigan Press, 2006).
Camille Dungy ha recibido becas y premios de la National Endowment for the Arts, de la Comisión para las Artes de Virginia, la Conferencia Pan Pan de Escritores, Canem Cueva, el Premio Dana, la Sociedad Americana de Anticuarios, y la Conferencia de Escritores de Sewanee. Estando en Rocky Mountain National Park, Dungy también ha recibido becas y residencias por la Corporación de Yaddo, el Centro de Virginia para las Artes Creativas, la Isla Norte / Este de la Frontera Sociedad, y la Fundación Ragdale.
Sus poemas han sido publicados ampliamente en antologías y publicaciones impresas y en línea.
Recientemente, profesora en el Departamento de Escritura Creativa en la Universidad Estatal de San Francisco, y actualmente profesora en el Departamento de Inglés de la Universidad del Estado de Colorado.
Su página en inglés: http://www.camilledungy.com
E-mail: camille @ camilledungy . com
ESTOS SON LOS MOMENTOS PERMITIDOS
Entre las gotas de lluvia,
el espacio, ciertamente,
pero a todo lo llamamos lluvia.
Cuelgo de los intervalos no empapados,
mientras Callie está durmiendo,
mi viejo yo necesario
e imperceptible como el aire.
(Traducción: G.A. Chaves, 2012.)
http://cafeverlaine.blogspot.com.es/
Lenguaje
El silencio es una parte del habla, el grito de guerra
del viento por el desfiladero es otro.
La voz de un desconocido resonando por los valles
solitarios, la voz de un amante elevándose tan cerca
que es tu propia lengua. Estas son las claves para descifrar
la manera en que la clave del alto halcón abre la garganta
del cielo y el gimoteo del coyote golpea cerrándola.
La forma en que las campanas de los álamos se ajustan
a la brisa mientras los tambores de los rápidos definen
resistencia. La salvia habla con una voz, el piñonero
con otra. La piedra, el viento su mano, el agua
su pincel, embruja y luego esparce sus exigencias.
Algunas notas rasgan y ponen guijarros en nuestros caminos. Algunas notas nos unen a la ribera en la que trazamos nuestras
vidas.
Translated by— Vanessa Rodriguez de la Vega
Aundrea Brewster
Seth Sartain
Language
Silence is one part of speech, the war cry
of wind down a mountain pass another.
A stranger's voice echoing through lonely
valleys, a lover's voice rising so close
it's your own tongue: these are keys to cipher,
the way the high hawk's key unlocks the throat
of the sky and the coyote's yip knocks
it shut, the way the aspens' bells conform
to the breeze while the rapid's drums define
resistance. Sage speaks with one voice, pinyon
with another. Rock, with her hand, water
her brush, spells and then scatters her demands.
Some notes tear and pebble our paths. Some notes
gather: the bank we map our lives around.
http://redafupoetisas.blogspot.com.es/
REQUIEM
Sing the mass—
light upon me washing words
now that I am gone.
The sky was a hot, blue sheet the summer breeze fanned
out and over the town. I could have lived forever
under that sky. Forgetting where I was,
I looked left, not right, crossed into a street
and stepped in front of the bus that ended me.
Will you believe me when I tell you it was beautiful—
my left leg turned to uselessness and my right shoe flung
some distance down the road? Will you believe me
when I tell you I had never been so in love
with anyone as I was, then, with everyone I saw?
The way an age-worn man held his wife’s shaking arm,
supporting the weight that seemed to sing from the heart
she clutched. Knowing her eyes embraced the pile
that was me, he guided her sacked body through the crowd.
And the way one woman began a fast the moment she looked
under the wheel. I saw her swear off decadence.
I saw her start to pray. You see, I was so beautiful
the woman sent to clean the street used words
like police tape to keep back a young boy
seconds before he rounded the grisly bumper.
The woman who cordoned the area feared my memory
would fly him through the world on pinions of passion
much as, later, the sight of my awful beauty pulled her down
to tears when she pooled my blood with water
and swiftly, swiftly washed my stains away.
Runaway ran away
gone from a man claimed the girl
a man named the girl
got the girl
stored up in his room
•
ran away
runaway
gone
Dinah gone
•
19 years
of age
about five foot three inches
brown hair a cask-shaped mark over her left eye
•
no one speaks no speech
just hatching
•
thought he knew her well
when she was in there with him
not a word was spoken
who to trust now?
thought he knew
•
presents a gap
between her upper foreteeth when she smiles
"Runaway ran away" from Suck on the Marrow.
Almost Like They Wanted It
Because she'd heard him laugh through new moon darkness
and she knew he'd fallen and she knew, before she turned,
he'd be crawling, like a crawdad, rock to loam—
because she tried to love the straight back and neck
he'd erected to recollect the man he'd been
before—because she found herself adding up his usefulness
like some kind of auctioneer—she showed him
the dark coils areoling both her breasts and all the ways
she bent and lifted, bent and lifted, steady, strong.
She let him believe he was past due for a harvest
and her hands were the right ones, now, to hold onto the scythe.
•
She made quick work of pleasure. The boysmile bunked down
in his eyes, she claimed. Her tongue found the place in his mouth
where the teeth were gone—where he'd hold his corncakes
until they grew soft enough to chew. History had bedded him
in all of this—his own history and failures not his own.
Before he'd tramped in she'd watched another man—a man she'd thought
she'd hated—watched his body opened, opened, opened until
blood had married brine. She'd watch that man be whipped into something
good for nothing more than fertilizing clay and she'd thought
buckshot would have been a brand of kindness if sprayed into him
just then. But even after his hard going, she did not miss him very much.
•
Anyone she chose could be shucked like surplus property tomorrow,
but that hadn't been enough to warn her off of picking him that night.
Because she knew if she set her sight on nothing she'd get nothing
in return, she'd walked with him. But because the night progressed so
—because there were some clouds—no stars—no moon—he'd tripped
over the branch of a dead and down tree. In all that darkness,
there, without a moon, even then, she had not fallen. She thought
to say so, but she did not say so. She did nothing
but say she was sorry for him. She did not use her mouth
to say this. Could he not listen to her hands? They spoke softly,
articulating her condolences, to his torn and bleeding skin.
"Almost Like They Wanted It" from Suck on the Marrow.
Ark
I will enter you as hope enters me,
through blinding liquid, light of rain, and I
will stay inside until you send me out;
I will stay inside until you ground me.
We cannot outrun the rain. So many
summers I have tried. So many summers.
But when the rumble calls after the spark
there can be no escape. No outstripping
the drench soak, the wet sheath, the water caul.
This is more than you want to hear. Much more
than I want to tell you. Tabernacle
transporting my life from the desert, you,
the faith I am born and reborn into,
you, rescuer, deliverer of rain.
"Ark" from What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison.