Olena Kalytiak Davis
(1963) es una poeta ucraniana-americana, de Detroit, Michigan.
OBRA:
1997 And Her Soul Out of Nothing (winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, published by the University of Wisconsin Press)
2003 Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off-And-Back Handed Importunities (poetry) Portland, OR:Tin House Books. ISBN 1-58234-352-7
2009 On the Kitchen Table from Which Everything Has Been Hastily Removed. Published by Hollyridge Press. ISBN 978-0-9799588-8-5
2014 The Poem She Didn't Write And Other Poems, Published by Copper Canyon Press. ISBN 978-1-55659-459-5
2014 shattered sonnets love cards and other back handed importunities, Republished by Copper Canyon Press. ISBN 978-1-55659-440-3
Traducción de Berta García Faet
EL “YO” LIRICO VA EN COCHE A RECOGER A SUS HIJOS DEL COLE:
POEMA A LA MODA POSTCONFESIONAL
“yo” no ha encontrado, empezado, acabado el poema matutino de “yo”
el poema que “yo” estaba escribiendo sobre “yo” teniendo sexo con el hombre por el
cual “yo” dejó a su marido
anoche o quizás esta mañana
un poema sexual, como quien dice, por así decir, por así desplegar
una fundación
para… qué???????????
SEXO
perdí mi sex/ual poema
cómo fue?
sé que se llamaba
SEXO
decía algo sobre mis acres frondosos
midepilado ahí-abajo
algo sobre lo apretadito lo rápido
(traigo a Tiresias?)
has dicho calma?
tiresias, a quién le gusta más mentir/seguir follando?
ooops.
a quién le gusta más follar?
(“tráete de vuelta // tu antigua reflexión // (allengrossman haciendo de yeats)
de que la vida nos prepara // para lo que nunca sucede”)
hoy (el color de) mi sexo
estaba lavanda luego amarillo
dorado luego mutó en gris musgoso en verde
requiero a mi amante
más abajo
requiero a mi amante que shhhhhhhhhhhhh
requiero a mi amante
que se quede
requiero a mi
amante, ve!
amante, ve!
(mira!)
requiero a mi amante que se mantenga
lejos
“yo” se da cuenta de que casi ya es la hora de recoger a sus hijos del cole!
“yo” cae en la cuenta de que no ha llegado a ninguna parte, a ninguna parte cerca, y
mucho menos dentro, desperdiciada
otra mañana, no puede escribir un puto poema para salvar la vida de “yo”, bueno
bueno,
“yo”, al menos, está “trabajando”.
“yo” se pone sus pantalones ajustados, sus botas grandes, su parka voluminosa.
“yo” abre el coche con el mando.
el coche de “yo” es un toyota rojo de 1995 4×4 que no tiene la suficiente potencia para
“yo”.
la radio del coche de “yo” tampoco tiene la suficiente potencia para “yo”.
“yo” conduce por la ciudad escuchando a dylan, que tiene mucha potencia para “yo”.
“yo” se pregunta cómo es que por qué dylan no es el hombre de “yo”.
a “yo” la miran hombres inferiores, algunos en mejores coches, furgos más potentes ,
a pesar de que “yo” lleva una gorrita de lana que le tapa el pelo rubio y sucio.
“yo” siente el poder de ser una madre soltera en un coche rojo.
“yo” sabe que no es bastante poder.
“yo” piensa “yo soy el hombre, he sufrido, pasé por eso”.
“yo” está casi en la ruina pero
“yo” piensa “vivo más en un presente continuo, que disfruto”.
“yo” piensa “amor fati”.
“yo” mira de pronto las montañas chugach.
“yo” mira y ve que las montañas chugach a veces se ven desoladas y sucias y como con
barricadas.
“yo” se percata de que las montañas chugach hoy están especialmente bellas con sol
y nieve.
“yo” casi piensa “bañadas en sol y nieve” pero se resiste.
“yo” siente que “yo” tal vez puede encontrar, en realidad empezar, en realidad
terminar su poema sexual mañana.
a “yo” le gusta esa cosa de dubus de que el adulterio también conlleva una moral
propia.
a “yo” asimismo le gusta “el drama humano”.
a “yo” le encantó “i hearthuckabees”.
“yo” pensó durante mucho tiempo que el sexo estaba sobrevalorado, luego no lo pensó
durante un año y medio, ahora
lo piensa otra vez.
a “yo” se le da, bueno, se le ha dado bien chuparla.
“yo” aguanta como un hombre.
“yo” opina que debería haber una nueva “nueva poesía del yo sexualizada y
radicalizada”.
“yo” conoce bien el “frenesí monomaniaco del delirante del loco” pero
a “yo” en general no se le va la cabeza.
“yo” se acuerda de que “hace mucho tiempo, en 1925, boristo mashevsky, uno de los
líderes de la crítica
formalista rusa, apuntó que el “poema autobiográfico” es un poema que mitologiza la
vida del poeta de acuerdo con las convenciones de su tiempo. no va de lo que
ha pasado, va de lo que tendría que haber pasado, presentando de este
modo una imagen idealizada del poeta en tanto que representante de su
escuela literaria”.
“yo” quiere ser un hombre como marjorie perloff, helen hennessy vendler, boris
tomashevsky.
“yo” opina que, por otro lado, “quiero decir que en el arte me gusta cuando el artista
no sabe
qué sabe en general; sólo sabe que sabe cosas específicas”.
“yo” piensa: “está el mantel limpio o yo no soy bobrauschenberg?”.
“yo” piensa que ojalá “yo” pudiera hablar más inteligentemente de teoría, no
“yo” piensa que ojalá “yo” pudiera escribir poemas más inteligentes, no
“yo” piensa “POR QUÉ SOY POETA Y NO…”
“yo” piensa “KALYTIAK DAVIS PINTA UN CUADRO”.
“yo” quiere meter la palabra “coruscante” y posiblemente una cita de rudolf
steiner.
“yo” piensa que ojalá pudiera acordarse de la definición de abrams de la estructura
de la más grande poesía romántica, pero el hecho de que presenta “a un determinado
hablante en un ambiente particular y usualmente al aire libre, al cual
escuchamos mientras efectúa, en lenguaje fluido y llano que fácilmente se eleva
a registros más formales, un coloquio sostenido, a veces con él mismo o con el
exterior, pero más frecuentemente con un receptor humano silencioso,
presente o ausente” y que “el hablante empieza con una descripción del
paisaje” y que “un elemento o un cambio en los elementos del paisaje evoca un
variado pero integral proceso de rememoraciones, pensamientos anticipados y
sentimientos que se conectan íntimamente con el exterior” y que “en el
transcurso de esta meditación el yo lirico logra una mejor comprensión, se
enfrenta a la pérdida trágica, desemboca en una decisión moral o resuelve un
problema emocional” y que “a menudo el poema acaba donde empezó, en el
exterior, pero con una modificaciónanímica y un entendimiento más profundo
que es el resultado de la meditación susodicha” la evade.
“yo” quiere decir “receptor humano silencioso, estás ausente o presente?” pero “yo”
sabe
que “yo” usa, ha usado ese truco demasiado a menudo.
“yo” sabe que “yo” está sola en su coche rojo.
“yo” reconsidera que tal vez sería como chuparla bien?
“yo” piensa su de él su de él él él mismo, pero sin demasiada acritud, luego
“yo” piensa “yo”, luego
“yo” piensa “tú”.
“yo” no le ha dicho a su amante que “yo” ya no está enamorada de él, pero “yo” sabe
que él lo sabe, debe de saberlo.
“yo” no le ha dicho a su amante que “yo” habló largo y tendido con el exmarido de “yo”
por teléfono ayer.
“yo” piensa “mis intromisiones y mis oblicuidades”.
“yo” piensa que es el amor lo que fue mal.
“yo” siente cómo elizabeth bishop riñe a “yo”.
“yo” piensa en un casi tortazo cuidadoso cariñoso firme pero en realidad sólo un
apretón fuerte de, no sobre, la mano de una, la, madre; ninguna de ellas tuvo
durante mucho mucho tiempo
suficiente.
“yo” no ha pensado en la madre muerta de “yo” durante mucho tiempo.
“yo” piensa en jonathan letham y en su madre muerta y en sus paredes llenas de libros.
“yo” piensa en mark reagan y en sus paredes y en sus paredes llenas de libros, y en
cómo su casero,
por miedo a un derrumbamiento, le hizo mudarse al primer piso.
“yo” piensa en dougteter y en su pared llena de libros, más pequeña, mas quieta.
“yo” piensa en judelaw.
“yo” piensa en que judelaw probablemente no sabe leer.
“yo” piensa que ningún amante suyo puede ser su “correlato objetivo”, sin embargo
“yo” piensa “qué verdadero sería un amante como teagenes”.
“yo” piensa “qué constante un amigo como pílades”.
“yo” piensa “qué valiente un hombre como orlando”.
“yo” piensa “qué correcto un príncipe como xenofón de ciro”.
“yo” piensa “qué excelente un hombre igual igual al eneas de virgilio”.
“yo” se percata de que dylan casi ya ha acabado de cantar “to ramona”.
a “yo” le encanta lo de “everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think
you
should do”.
“yo” piensa que dylan le está cantando a “yo”.
“yo” piensa que se refiere a ahora, y a ahora, y a ahora; todos los días.
“yo” casi ha llegado.
“yo” se pregunta si esta meditación de “yo” no es demasiado larga, si se ha alejado de
“yo”.
“yo” opina que debería de tomar exactamente el mismo tiempo que el viaje en coche: 15 minutos como máximo: vale, 30
si hay tormenta de nieve.
“yo” sabe que no está nevando.
“yo” se pregunta si “yo” debería en este punto referirse a la meditación de “yo”.
“yo” piensa en que “el hombre puede encarnar la verdad; no obstante, no puede
conocerla”.
“yo” piensa “sobre todo en condiciones de crisis psicológica”.
“yo” piensa en que qué es peor, la anáfora o la anafrodisia?
“yo” piensa en el diafragma todavía dentro de ella.
“yo” se cierra ante la audacia de su sexo.
“yo” llega justo a la hora para recoger a su hija.
“yo” tiene que esperar otros 45 minutos para rescatar a su hijo.
“yo” intentará acordarse y se acordará de esconderlo inmediatamente antes de que
lleguen a la casa de “yo”,
i.e. “a casa”.
“yo” ha manipulado los hechos para que “tú” te pienses que ella es robert lowell( (pero quien ha visto nunca
a una chica como robert lowell?).
a “yo” no le importa si “tú”, receptor humano silencioso, presente o ausente, nunca
jamás has escuchado hablar de,
o no te importa un carajo, robert lowell.
*
The Lyric “I” Drives to Pick up Her Children from School:
A Poem in the Postconfessional Mode
“i” has not found, started, finished “i’s” morning poem,
the poem “i” was writing about “i” having sex with the man “i” left her husband for
the night before or maybe just this morning.
a sex poem, so to speak, so to say, so as to lay…
a foundation for…
what????????
SEX
i lost my sex /poem!
how did it go?
i know it was called
SEX
something about my bosky acres,
my unshrubb’d down
‘bout all being tight and yare
(bring in tiresias?)
did you say soothe?
tiresias, who lies fucking more?
whoops.
who likes fucking more?
(“bring in // the old thought //(allen grossman doing yeats)
that life prepares us for//what never happens”)
today (the color of ) my sex
was lavender then yellow
gold then muted mossy grey and green
i bid my lover
lower
i bid my lover shhhhhhh
i bid my lover
linger
i bid my
lover, go
lover, go!
(see!)
i bid my lover stay
away
“i” notices it is almost time to pick up her children from school!
“i” realizes she has gotten nowhere, nowhere near it, much less inside it, wasted another morning, can’t fucking write a poem to save “i’s” life, oh well,
“i” is, at least,“working”.
“i” pulls on her tight jeans, her big boots, her puffy parka.
“i” remote starts her car.
“i’s” car is a 1995 red toyota 4-runner with racing stripe that doesn’t have enough power for “i”.
“i’s” car stereo also doesn’t have enough power for “i”.
“i” drives cross town listening to dylan, who has plenty of power for “i”.
“i” wonders how why dylan isn’t “i’s” man.
“i” gets some looks from some lesser men, some in better, more powerful trucks, even though “i’s” dirty dirty-blonde hair is covered by a woolen cap.
“i” feels the power of being a single mom in a red truck.
“i” knows it is not enough power.
“i” thinks “i am the man, i suffered, i was there”.
“i” is almost broke, but
“i” thinks “i live more in a continuous present that i enjoy”.
“i” thinks “amor fati”.
“i” notices the chugach mountains.
“i” notices the chugach mountains sometimes look good and sometimes bad.
“i” remembers that yesterday the chugach mountains looked desolate and dirty and roadblocky.
“i” notices the chugach mountains look particularly beautiful today covered in sun and snow.
“i” almost thinks “bathed in sun and snow” but stops herself.
“i” feels that “i” can maybe find, really start, really finish her sex poem tomorrow.
“i” likes the dubus thing about adultery having a morality of its own.
“i” also likes “human drama”.
“i” really enjoyed “i heart huckabees”.
“i” thought sex was overrated for a long time, then not for a year and a half, and now, again.
“i” gives, well, has given, good head.
“i” takes it like a man.
“i” thinks there should be a new “new sexualized and radicalized poetry of the self”,
“i” knows the “single-minded frenzy of a raving madman” but,
“i” mostly keeps her head.
“i” remembers that “as long ago as 1925, boris tomashevsky, a leading russian formalist critic, observed that the “autobiographical poem” is one that mythologizes the poet’s life in accordance with the conventions of his time. it relates not what has occurred but what should have occurred, presenting an idealized image of the poet as representative of his literary school”
“i” wants to be a man like marjorie perloff, helen hennessy vendler, boris tomashevsky.
“i” thinks, on the other hand, “i mean i like in art when the artist doesn’t know what he knows in general; he only knows what he knows specifically”.
“i” thinks: “that mantel piece is clean enough or my name isn’t bob rauschenberg”.
“i” just wishes “i” could talk more smarter theory, no
“i” just wishes “i” could write more smarter poems, no
“i” thinks “WHY I AM A POET AND NOT A…”
“i” thinks “KALYTIAK DAVIS PAINTS A PICTURE”.
“i” wants to include the word “coruscate” in it, and, possibly, a quote from rudolf steiner.
“i” wishes she could remember abrams definition of the structure of the greater romantic lyric, but that it presents “ a determinate speaker in a particularized, and usually localized outdoor setting, whom we overhear as he carries on, in a fluent vernacular which rises easily to a more formal speech, a sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or with the outer scene, but more frequently with a silent human auditor, present or absent.” and that “he speaker begins with a description of the landscape;’ and that “an aspect or change of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied but integral process of memory, thought anticipation, and feeling which remains closely involved with the outer scene.” and that “in the course of this meditation the lyric speaker achieves an insight, faces up to a tragic loss, comes to a moral decision or resolves an emotional problem.” and that “often the poem rounds upon itself to end where it began, at the outer scene, but with an altered mood and deepened understanding which is the result of the intervening meditation” evades her.
“i” wants to say “silent human auditor, are you absent or present?” but “i” knows “i” makes, has made, that move too often.
“i” knows “i” is alone in her red truck.
“i” reconsiders, perhaps it is like giving good head?
“i’ thinks his his he himself, but not too bitterly, then
“i” thinks “i”, then,
“i” thinks “you”.
“i” has not told her lover that “i” is not in love with him any longer, but “i” knows he knows, must know.
“i” has not told her lover that “i” had a long conversation with “i’s” x-husband on the phone last night.
“i” thinks “my sidestepping and obliquities”.
“i” thinks love is what went wrong.
“i” feels elizabeth bishop reprimanding “i”.
“i” thinks like a gentle loving firm almost slap but really just a squeeze of, not on, the hand from a, the, mother neither one of them had for very long, long enough.
“i” has not thought of “i’s” dead mother in a long time.
‘i” thinks of jonatham letham and his dead mother and his wall of books.
“i” thinks of mark reagan and his walls and walls of books, and how his landlord, fearing collapse, made him move to the bottom floor.
“i” thinks of doug teter and his smaller, but still, wall of books.
“i” thinks of jude law.
“i” thinks jude law probably doesn’t know how to read.
“i” knows that no lover can be her “objective correlative”, still
“i” thinks “so true a lover as theagenes”.
“i” thinks “so constant a friend as pylades”.
“i” thinks “so valiant a man as orlando”.
“i ” thinks “so right a prince as xenophon’s cyrus”
“i” thinks “so excellent a man in every way as virgil’s aeneas”.
“i” notices dylan is almost done singing “to ramona”.
“i” loves “everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.”
“i” thinks dylan is singing to “i” .
“i” thinks he means now, and now, and now; daily.
“i” is almost there.
“i” wonders if “i’s” meditation is too long, has gotten away from “i”.
“i” thinks it should take precisely as long as the ride: 15 minutes tops; well, 30 in a snowstorm.
“i” knows it is not snowing.
“i wonders if “i” should at this point even refer to “i’s” meditation.
“i” thinks “man can embody truth but he cannot know it”.
“i” thinks “especially under stress of psychological crisis”.
“i” thinks what’s worse, anaphora or anaphrodesia?
“i” thinks of the diaphragm still inside her.
“i” shutters at the audacity of her sex.
“i” is exactly on time to pick up her daughter.
“i” must wait another 45 minutes to retrieve her son.
“i” will try and remember to remove it promptly when they get back to “i’s” house, i.e. home.
“i” has fucked with the facts so “you” think she’s robert lowell. (but whoever saw a girl like robert lowell?)
“i” doesn’t care if “you”, silent human auditor, present or absent, never heard of, could give a flying fuck about, robert Lowell.
http://latribudefrida.com/poesia/un-poema-de-olena-kalytiak-davis/
SONNET (silenced)
with her unearned admixable beauty
she sat up on the porch and asked for (f)light;
answerable only to poetry—
and love—to make it thru the greyblue night
blew smoke into words and even whiter ghosts
that could see what others in this broad dark
could not: she set to make of nothing most,
better: an everenlightening mark:
ghost gave her this: a piece of flint: that if
you rubbed the right way,
the lightlessness would come down, give up, lift—
and then there would be nothing left to say.
o sterilize the lyricism of
my sentence: make me plain again my love
(my ghost)
(and dumb)
From The Poem She Didn’t Write and Other Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) by Olena Kalytiak Davis.
My Love Sent Me a List
O my Love sent me a lusty list,
Did not compare me to a summer’s day
Wrote not the beauty of mine eyes
But catalogued in a pretty detailed
And comprehensive way the way(s)
In which he was better than me.
“More capable of extra- and inter-
Polation. More well-traveled -rounded multi-
Lingual! More practiced in so many matters
More: physical, artistic, musical,
Politic(al) academic (I dare say!) social
(In many ways!) and (ditto!) sexual!”
And yet these mores undid but his own plea(s)(e)
And left, none-the-less, the Greater Moor of me.
About this poem:
“No, really, a found poem; however, I also find, that if one reads thirty or so Shakespearean sonnets in a row (out loud), something is bound to happen.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis
Least Said
Maybe we you us
But not everyone except
Everyone else seemingly set
One could romanticize the shipbells
Out of somebody else’s grocery, sex shopping, life cleaning, bills
Of sail. When they had fresh grapefruit it was nothing like you not having
Scurvy, with or without the vodka. Your friends
Did they still say things (?) and the masses—
No, one didn’t want to picture that vast
Writhing. Self-love is better left to this selective peculiar:
One shelf over, top shelf. The yeats, the years, none of it
More real than this. The judgment, the particular partings:
Reading a new yorker article about you. Reading. An article.
A small monster at my toe. There was once a long lusty list but
The only thing s/he had on me was feet. I went to course, to game, to
College. The epiphany was not worth dwelling (placement word of
Your choice here). Not to speak of, or the her, him, him before him, your last
Lover but, “seeing someone else right now”? Mostly, the possessive pronoun
“Her” in the next clause. Whose unfairness? Be spoken and be longing.
(An embarrassment of melons and heavily salted meats.)
The thing you will miss was being sexy, you will forget that you went
Forgetting all along; the whole ride. Going, going. Not coming. Reading,
Too closely, will fail my the measure of some treasure
You believe exists, but how? Morning was the only mooring: feeling,
Thinking, seeing no one. Right
Now. Or now. Barely tolerated, living.
Corruptive
The dark wood after the dark wood: the cold
after cold in April’s false November.
In that second worser place: more gone, less there,
but in that lurid present present, cast and held,
rooted, kept, like some old false-berried yew.
Just against; the door leading to preferment
shut; no longer believing in still, by some, few
means, method, could be, but for the bad day set,
left, leaning atop bad day.
Out- and un-
ranked, toothached, wronged— rankled corruptive thing!
Ill-wishing, in-iquitous, clipped, up-hoped, stripped: just plain: thin.
Dare thy commit: commit this final fatal sin:
God my God, I am displeased by spring.
.