Chris Llewellyn
Chris Llewellyn es una poeta americana.
Se graduó de Warren Wilson College.
Su trabajo apareció en Pudding House.
Se casó con el abogado del Departamento de Justicia Edward Bordley. Viven en un pequeño apartamento del noreste de Washington, DC y tienen una hija, Elizabeth Bordley.
Premios
1986 Premio Walt Whitman
Obras
Poesía
"Valentines; Praise" . Capitol Hill Poetry Group .
"Mirror-Writing" (PDF) . VOICE newsleter . November 2008.
Four Leaf Clover . sn 1973. chapbook
The Avian Muses: A Collection of Poems . Warren Wilson College. 1990.
Fragments from the Fire: the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of March 25, 1911 . Viking. 1987. ISBN 978-0-670-81512-8
Steam Dummy & Fragments from the Fire . Bottom Dog Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-933087-29-3 .
Antologías
Peter Oresick, Nicholas Coles , ed. (1990). Working classics . University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06133-2 .
Hasia R. Diner, Jeffrey Shandler, Beth S. Wenger, eds. (December 1, 2000). Remembering the Lower East Side . Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33788-7.
Kamal Boullata, Kathy Engel, eds. (2007). We begin here: poems for Palestine and Lebanon . Interlink Books. ISBN 978-1-56656-687-2.
La versión al español es de Adalberto García López.
http://circulodepoesia.com/2016/04/american-poetry-chris-llewellyn/
Fragmentos del fuego
(fragmento)
Era primavera. Era sábado.
Día de pago. Para algunos era Sabbat.
Pronto será Pascua. Estaba
Acercándose abril, pronto Pésaj.
Estaba cerca la hora de cierre.
Las copas de los árboles en ciernes
En el parque Washington Square.
El sol es un volante caliente girando
En el eje de la tierra. Los días duran
Lo suficiente para dejarlo en la luz.
Era primavera.
Dulces corazones americanos –las señoritas-
Pasean en blusas de césped y de encaje,
Imitando a las chicas de Charles Dana Gibson.
Ellas posan en cortes de gala de piezas de
Ligeras y cosidas prendas de damas
En Gibbs, Wilcox y máquinas Singers.
Era sábado.
En el edificio Asch
En la Triangle Shirtwaist Company,
Rosie Glantz está cantando “Every Little
Movement Has A Meaning Of Its Own”.
Peinándose, colocándose maquillaje y rizos
Las otras chicas en el guardarropa se unen:
“Let me call you Sweetheart,
I’m in love with you”
Era día de pago.
Esencia de rosas, lirio de los valles,
Todavía huelen a aceite de máquina
Que empapa los motores y los suelos.
El barril en cada escalera
Podría llenar mil lámparas.
Para algunos era Sabbat.
Aquí en Triangle, Sophie Salemi
Y Della Costello cosen en Singers.
Vecinos de la calle Cherry
Trabajan a destajo viéndose unos a otros,
El aceite en la bandeja golpea sus rodillas.
Mañana las hermanas clavarán flores
En las puertas del vecindario.
Pronto será Pésaj.
Fragments from fire
It was Spring. It was Saturday.
Payday. For some it was Sabbath.
Soon it will be Easter. It was
approaching April, nearing Passover.
It was close to closing time.
The heads of trees budding
in Washington Square Park.
The sun a hot flywheel spinning
the earth’s axle. The days long
enough for leaving in light.
It was Spring.
American’s sweethearts—the ladies—
stroll in shirtwaists of lawn and lace,
mimic Charles Dana Gibson’s Girls.
They pose in finery cut from bolts of
flimsy and stitched by garment girls
on Gibbs, Wilcox, and Singer machines.
It was Saturday.
Up in the Asch Building
in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
Rosie Glantz is singing “Every Little
Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own.”
Fixing hair, arranging puffs and tendrils,
the other girls in the cloakroom join in:
“Let me call you Sweetheart,
I’m in love with you.”
It was Payday.
Attar-of-roses, lily of the valley,
still they smell of machine oil
that soaks the motors and floors.
The barrel in each stairwell
could fill a thousand lamps.
For some it was Sabbath.
Here at Triangle, Sophie Salemi
and Della Costello sew on Singers.
Neighbors from Cherry Street,
they piecework facing each other,
the oil pan hitting their knees.
Tomorrow sisters will nail flowers
on tenement doors.
Soon it will be Easter.
The machine heads connected by belts
to the flywheel to rotating axle
sing the Tarantella. Faster,
faster vibrate the needles, humming
faster the fashionable dance.
It was approaching April.
Valentines
The broom-maker and his wife,
both blind, carried their craft
from door to door. In Sunday best
he stroked the straws to show
how carefully he counted, then
bound them in a strong red cord.
She'd ruffle his besoms of sorghum
twigs—stiff and rough enough to
sweep out gutter spouts or
hearthstones. Her blue, wide eyes
had never seen, and his, child-
sized, stayed closed under
a shock of brown hair. Are lights
shut off, paper shades drawn down
in their two room nest downtown?
In one, poles and panicles
wait in particular places, while
in another the iron bedstead,
fragrant with broomcorn and sawdust,
strums its tuneful harpstrings
into their moonstruck darkness.
Praise
Great grandmother in dacron brocade suit,
snowflake prayer cap, props her spiral spine
hymnal on the altar rail and raising
her lace hanky, prompts the early arrivers
to join in: "Go tell it on the mountain,
over the hills..." The congregation rises
in response, rolling their rich lyrics
over the double glass storm doors, down
the gravel path of parked cars into
the fallen winter cornstalks.
A stack of tambourines rests on the aisle
end of each white pine pew of the Morning
Star Hill Pentecostal. When the guitar
and piano strike introductory chords,
cousins in bows and cornrows rock
the bench, bat-jingle bat-jingle-bam.
On Daddy's lap, baby Elizabeth lifts
this instrument in her one-year-old arms,
and with perfect fingers she taps-taps
slowly, slowly, the silver circle bangles.
Kim
Swift as wing beats
you dart between
counter and grill.
The blackbirds
on your red shirt not
as jet as netted hair.
Ten egg suns shimmer
easy-over paddy ground
sausage as you turn
down tiny jet flames
spoon up clouds of grits.
Momentarily your head rests
on the microwave and there
closed-eyed and sighing
do you hear the netted heart?
.