Naomi Replansky
Nacida el 23 de mayo de 1918. Poeta americana que nació en el Bronx; actualmente reside en Manhattan. Su Collected Poems, ganaron el Premio de the Poetry Society of America's 2013 William Carlos Williams y fue finalista para el Premio 2014. Los poemas de Replansky han aparecido en muchas revistas literarias y antologías, tal como No More Masks!, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies, and Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era.
Sus cuatro libros de poesía son:
Ring Song (Scribners 1952)
Twenty-One Poems, Old and New (Gingko Press 1988)
The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Another Chicago Press 1994)
Collected Poems (Black Sparrow Press/Godine 2012)
"Mis principales influencias poéticas", afirma Replansky, "han sido William Blake, canciones populares, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Emily Dickinson y la poesía japonesa."
Quejas elevadas a la encargada,
musa de la poesía lírica,
por el sindicato internacional
de los poetas líricos
1. Nunca nos dices qué debemos hacer,
pero sentimos tu repugnante desagrado
si no está hecho,
y bien hecho.
2. No nos pagas por hora
ni por semana, ni por año.
Podríamos bregar toda una vida
sin el premio de tu sonrisa,
pero hay que ver cómo bendices
al que un día vertiginoso
sacó una pieza de la nada.
3. Careces de instrumentos de precisión
que midan el valor de nuestras producciones.
(Tus inspectores cambian sin cesar
y algunos te profesan poco afecto).
4. Nos encierras en nuestro idioma
hasta cuando sentimos el frío de la patria.
Cuanto más justas son nuestras palabras,
más radiantes su música y encanto,
más arduo es para ellas
conservar su atractivo
cuando intentan cruzar una frontera.
5. Promueves a los jóvenes de entre nosotros.
¿Qué más pueden hacer los veteranos?
¿Aprender otro oficio? Si hasta esperas
que esos viejos decrépitos compitan
con la versión más joven de sí mismos.
Exigimos una pensión que dé Seguridad estética
y un pequeño subsidio de Sabiduría
para sobrellevar los males del invierno.
6. Debemos mantener la productividad
aun cuando no hay demanda.
Nuestras piezas atestan el mercado.
Nadie nos presta oído.
¿Debemos achacarlo a nuestra incompetencia?
7. Tenemos quejas. Nos quejamos.
Pero nunca nos pondremos en huelga.
Tememos por el cierre de tu fábrica
como tenemos nuestra muerte.
Hace tiempo, cuando nos diste empleo,
pensamos que sería de por vida.
1995
Traducción Jordi Doce
Naomi Replansky (born May 23, 1918) is an American poet who was born in the Bronx; she currently resides in Manhattan. Her Collected Poems won the Poetry Society of America's 2013 William Carlos Williams Award and was a finalist for the 2014 Poets' Prize. Replansky's poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, such as No More Masks!, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies, and Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era.
Her four books of poetry are:
Ring Song (Scribners 1952)
Twenty-One Poems, Old and New (Gingko Press 1988)
The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Another Chicago Press 1994)
Collected Poems (Black Sparrow Press/Godine 2012)
"My chief poetic influences," Replansky states, "have been William Blake, folk songs, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Emily Dickinson and Japanese poetry."
Showing posts with label poems . Show all posts
AUGUST 27, 2009
The Dangerous World
The Dangerous World collects seventy-some poems of Naomi Replansky's written between 1934 and 1994, some previously published in Ring Song . Published by Another Chicago Press, it is unfortunately now out of print. Selected poems are posted below on this blog.
Night Prayer for Various Trades
Machinist in the pillow's grip,
Be clumsy and be blind
And let the gears spin free, and turn
No metal in your mind.
Long, long may the actress lie
In slumber like a stone,
The helpless words that rise from sleep
Be no words but her own.
Laborer, drift through a dark
Remote from clay and lime.
O do not tunnel through the night
In unpaid overtime.
You out-of-work, walk into sleep.
It will not ask to see
Your proof of skill or strength or youth
And shows its movies free.
And may the streetcleaner float down
A spotless avenue.
Who red-eyed wake at morning break
All have enough to do.
Enough to do. Now let the day
Its own accountings keep.
But may our dreams keep other time
Throughout our sprawling sleep.
Foreigner
He is alone and unarmed
And has no vessel for his vanity.
His curse is spoken, but nothing trembles.
His praise like rain runs down the gutters.
Laughter seizes him and he is silent.
Grief shakes him, he hides it in a stare.
And he can change nothing where he passes
Though he walk barefoot through bristling events.
A room, a sea, a street, a war,
Gather within and sinew him for speech
Richer than this, but who will hear him out.
O who will know him unto nakedness.
The Weeping Sea Beast
Tentacled for food,
You range your underwater neighborhood.
To look, to like, to eat, to break your fast!
Before you move an inch an hour is past,
Your prey is past, a swarm of scales, an eye,
A round fish eye, a rude unblinking eye.
You close on nothing; slowly you untwine
Your many arms and trail them through the brine.
Now sailors at the surface hear you cry,
And from those heights they cannot fathom why.
For there are agile creatures all around
Who dart like flames through this rich hunting ground
And others who lie still and gaping wide
And make no move; but armies come inside.
Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard
Whoever gave me magic told me lies.
This laying on of hands works otherwise.
Every whirling part of me is warm
Yet I come down on here like a snowstorm.
I speak the word that might unlock the rock
But hard upon that word my two jaws lock.
My sleeping power gathering to leap
Leaps tooth and claw into a deeper sleep.
The love potion I slyly pour for one
Is by another seized and swallowed down.
I learned the speech of birds; now every tree
Screams out to me a baleful prophecy.
Into a statue's lungs I breathe my own.
Sighing, it fills me with this sigh of stone.
My answer to the riddle bears with it
A greater riddle and more desperate.
All all runs wild, all wild and uncontrolled.
A toad hops from my mouth instead of gold.
.