Samuel Selvon: poemas traducidos
Posted: August 31, 2016 Filed under: English, Samuel Selvon, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Poetas de Trinidad y Tobago Comments Off on Samuel Selvon: poemas traducidos
Niños jugando bajo de un guayacán o árbol tabebuia © fotógrafo santalucence Chester Williams__ Children playing beneath a yellow Poui tree_photograph © Saint Lucian photographer Chester Williams
Samuel Selvon
(San Fernando, Trinidad, 1923-1994)
Temor
.
Lo cierto es que
profundamente
me asusto de la vida:
la lucubración solitaria
(el mediodía tiene su
cavilación también.)
He descubierto que la incertidumbre
está trepando, acechante y listo;
estando pendiente del momento expuesto.
.
Soy pecador:
Eso es la verdad.
Y los pecadores son ellos que
saben demasiado o muy poco.
Porque soy pagano,
venerando las cosas inanimadas:
ser un rey durante un día, solo – ¿pues?
.
Temo que
la fe no sea suficiente,
pero esta vida no esté lleno.
Construyo unos dioses vagos pequeñines:
esos dioses vagos
en lo más profundo de la noche,
o del día superficial.
Pero todos ellos se precipitaron.
. . .
Sueño
.
Perdí un sueño esta mañana
cuando me desperté,
y supliqué a la noche
para traerlo de nuevo.
Los tranvías roncos, en vano;
y aquellos que yo conocía
pasaban por un desconocido
separado a sí mismo…
.
En un desconcierto completo
averigüé a un méndigo en el parque
– una voz entusiasta por nada sino una voz –
y el reloj de la iglesia
hablaba alocadamente de
alguna hora de la tarde.
.
Pues entendí
el secreto del círculo cuadrado,
y miré la muerte de la Eternidad;
y dos por dos es igual a cinco.
Yo veía el Tiempo tambaleándose
y una puesta del sol
en el centro del cielo.
.
El méndigo escupió
sobre una hoja seca en el polvo…
El bufón era sordo,
entonces escuchaba
el vacío tremendo que yo contaba…
Pues me desperté.
. . .
Consuelo
.
La reacción inmediata a la acción
no es la cosa auténtica
ni representa el hombre usual.
Una furia caliente a causa de un golpe;
un júbilo rápido después de un beso:
estos pasarán, y luego
llegará la verdad.
.
Y puede que sí – con la vida.
Esta existencia en un dos por tres,
dentro de la eternidad del Tiempo,
puede ser que sea la reacción;
y cuando nos moriremos
llegarán los ámbitos, las reflexiones más sabias:
la lucidez de la vida.
. . .
El árbol guayacán
.
Para conseguir la vista esencial
de este árbol guayacán en el parque,
o sea, mirar las floraciones amarillas
parcheando lo azul del cielo tropica,
tengo que estar parado a cierta distancia.
.
Para agarrar una falta de vida
es pisar las flores tiradas sobre la hierba;
es mirar las últimas de la rama hasta el suelo:
una respuesta reluctante a la gravedad.
.
Únicamente son los niños que
entienden la belleza límpida;
con manos extendidas y ansiosas
tras las flores para bloquear un rato
su caída al suelo.
Parto de ellos
porque soy demasiado viejo para comprenderlo.
. . .
Los cuatro poemas arriba están incluidos al volumen de 2012, The Poems of Sam Selvon, editado por Roydon Salick, con un prólogo de Kenneth Ramchand. La mayoría de la poesía de Samuel Selvon data de los años 40, antes de su emigración al Reino Unido. Durante las dos décadas que siguieron, Sr. Selvon se volvió reconocido por sus obras literárias: novelas, relatos cortos, dramas para la radio BBC, y ensayos. Pero empezó todo con algunos poemas inquisitivos y tiernos, escritos mientras vivía en la ciudad de Port-of-Spain donde trabajaba como corresponsal del periódico Trinidad Guardian.
. . .
Samuel Selvon
(San Fernando, Trinidad, 1923-1994)
Fear
.
To tell truth
I am deeply afraid of life,
The lonely lucubration
(Noon-day has its pensiveness
Too).
I have found uncertainty
Creeping,
Lurking just a little way off,
Waiting, watching for the
Unguarded moment.
.
I am a sinner.
That is the truth of it.
And sinners are those who
Know too much or too little.
For I am a pagan
Worshipping inanimate things:
King for a day, and then?
.
I am afraid
Faith might be insufficient,
Yet life might not be full.
I build little vague gods:
Those vague gods in the deep
Of night
Or of the shallow day.
But they all come tumbling
Down.
. . .
Dream
.
I lost a dream this morning
When I woke
And prayed the night
To bring it back again.
In vain the noisy trams;
And those I knew I passed
A self-estranged stranger…
.
In utter bewilderment
I probed the beggar in the park
(An eager voice for nothing
But a voice)
And the clock on the church
Spoke crazily of some time
In the evening.
.
And then I knew
The secret of the square circle,
And saw Eternity die
And two and two make five.
Saw Time staggering,
And a sunset
In the centre of the sky.
.
The beggar spat
On a brown leaf in the dust…
The fool was deaf
So he listened
To the tremendous nothingness
I spoke…
Then I awoke.
. . .
Consolation
.
The immediate reaction to action
Is not the true thing
Nor depicts the usual man.
Hot fury at a blow;
Swift joy at a kiss,
Will pass, afterwards
The truth will come.
.
So perhaps with life,
This split-second existence
In the eternity of Time
Might be the first reaction,
And when we die, will come
Wiser realms, soberer thoughts ––
The truth of life.
. . .
Poui Tree
.
To get the essential view
Of this particular
Poui tree in the park,
That is to say, to watch
The yellow blossoms patch
The blueness of the tropic sky,
I must stand some distance off.
.
To capture lifelessness
Is to trample on the flowers
Lying on the grass,
To look at the death-throes
From limb to earth,
The reluctant answer
To gravity.
.
Only children know
The pristine beauty,
With eager outstretched hands
After the flowers from the earth
To bar their fall
A little longer.
I leave them because
I am too old to understand.
. . .
Pauline Enriques with Samuel Sevlon_Caribbean Voices BBC radio programme_1952
The above poems are included in the 2012 volume The Poems of Sam Selvon, edited by Roydon Salick, with a foreward by Kenneth Ramchand, and published by Cane Arrow Press.
The four poems here date from 1947. The bulk of Samuel Selvon’s poetic output dates from before 1950 (the year he emigrated to London, England), though his long prose-poem, “Poem in London” (which was broadcast on BBC Radio’s Caribbean Voices programme in 1951) is perhaps the most famous. Best known for his novels, short stories, radio dramas and non-fiction writing, Selvon’s poems had too long lain in vintage magazines and archive drawers until Cane Arrow Press decided to present these romantic, philosophical verses to the reading public.
. . . . .
Jennifer Rahim: poemas traducidos
Posted: August 31, 2016 Filed under: English, Jennifer Rahim, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best | Tags: Poetas de Trinidad y Tobago Comments Off on Jennifer Rahim: poemas traducidos
Frantz Fanon (1925- 1961): escritor y revolucionario nacido en Martinica_autor de “Los condenados de la tierra” / French- Caribbean writer and revolutionary from Martinique_most famous for his book “The Wretched of the Earth”
Jennifer Rahim
(Trinidad y Tobago)
Versos para Fanon: 1
.
Insististe en que hablabas para tu era.
Bien, Fanon – ahora es.
Como albañiles ingenuos,
construimos sobre la arena de jeraquías falsas,
prejuicios de todo tipo y mezclados con argamasa;
erigimos paredes por dividirnos, no alojarnos
– desconocidos, el uno al otro.
Escucha – el mundo está ruidoso con
el infierno de su propia construcción:
naciones que clonan con la guerra la democracia;
religiones que sacrifican al dogma la fe;
y la inocencia asesinada sobre el altar
de pasiones hórridas.
¡El tiempo de carroña, compañero!
No hay gente aquí sino una comitiva triste de fantasmas
apiñandose juntos. Las puertas están atrancadas y
la gente permanece seca de la tormenta de
nuestro fracaso colosal:
no amaremos más completos que cualquier credo venerado o odiado.
Reza, santo imperfecto, que saltaremos la cancela
– por fin.
. . .
Versos para Fanon: 2
.
El mundo no es como habías deseado, compañero.
Quizás nunca habías anticipado su llegada,
pero trabajabas la esperanza a un lenguaje
grande como la metáfora. La esperanza es
la única fe que puede trasladar una visión
sobre las líneas fortalecidas que nos ciñen
en parcelas que son demasiadas pequeñas
para el universo que fluye, sin costura, por tu sangre.
No es como lo habías imaginado, el mundo.
Exististe demasiado temprano, y nosotros – demasiado tarde.
Entonces somos una humanidad que arrastra sus pies,
y estamos destinados a lamentar el reino casi posible.
No, no somos las estrellas que soñabas tocar
– unos puros resplandores liberados de
cualquier pasado que bloquea la visión –
niños dispuestos y ávidos
– por fin.
. . .
Nota a mí misma
.
Un padre también merece la norma de siete-por-setenta.
(Nota a mí misma: no es un poema.)
Ninguna cosa que yo he dicho sobre ti era cierto. Nada que dije
alguna vez visitó tu sufrimiento fruncido
– algo que solamente yo ideara. Mi padre, vivía
el veredicto de mi deseo que seas un héroe, durante esos días
cuando se caían los dioses; yo quería que seas un dios
viniendo para rescatarme. Ay no, los padres no deben ser escritos
a menos que les permitamos ser en carne y hueso
– necesitando clemencia.
Solo es ahora, cuando resplandece tu vida en su fin,
que empiezo a entenderte.
. . .
Jennifer Rahim
(Trinidad and Tobago)
Lines to Fanon I
.
You insisted you spoke for your time.
Well, it is now, Fanon. Like foolish masons,
we build on the sand of false hierarchies,
prejudices of all kinds mixed with mortar,
walls erected to divide, not house us all –
strangers to each other.
Listen, the earth is noisy with the hell
of its construction: nations clone democracy
with war, religions sacrifice faith to dogma,
innocence murdered on the altar
of horrid passions.
Carrion time, brother!
No people here, just a sad company of ghosts
huddled together, doors bolted, keeping dry
from the storm of our colossal failure
to love larger than any creed
we venerate or hate.
Pray, imperfect saint,
we finally leap the gate.
. . .
Lines to Fanon II
.
The world is not as you desired, brother.
Maybe you never expected its arrival,
but worked hope into a language large
as metaphor – the one faith that transports
vision across hardened lines that gird us
in plots much too small for the universe
coursing, seamless, through your blood.
The world is not as you imagined it.
You were too soon, and we too late.
So we are a drag-foot humanity, destined
to lament the kingdom almost possible.
No, we are not the stars you dreamed
to touch, pure radiances unfettered
by any past – barring vision –
like bright-eyed children, at last.
. . .
Note to Self
.
Fathers, too, deserve the seven times seventy rule. (Note to self: not
a poem.) Nothing I ever said of you was true. Nothing said visited
your pursed suffering I could only imagine. Father, you lived the
sentence of my wanting you to be a hero, in those days when gods fell.
I wanted you to be a god to my rescue. No, fathers should never be
written unless we allow them, first, to be flesh, needing forgiveness.
Only now, when your life glows at its end, I begin to see you.
. . .
Poeta, ensayista y escritora de cuentos, Jennifer Rahim es una profesora también de la Universidad del Caribe (UWI) en Saint Augustine, Trinidad y Tobago. Fue una galardonada del premio Casa de las Américas en 2010 con su poemario Approaching Sabbaths (Sabbates inminentes ). Los poemas arriba están incluidos en el volumen Ground Level (Al nivel del suelo): (Peepal Tree Press, 2014).
. . .
Trinidadian poet/essayist/short-story writer Jennifer Rahim is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a Casa de las Américas prize in 2010 for her collection Approaching Sabbaths. The above poems are from her 2014 Peepal Tree Press volume Ground Level.
. . . . .
Fernando Brant & Milton Nascimento: “Heart is My Master”
Posted: August 28, 2016 Filed under: English, Fernando Brant, Portuguese | Tags: Brazilian song lyrics in translation Comments Off on Fernando Brant & Milton Nascimento: “Heart is My Master”
Milton Nascimento / Fernando Brant
Heart is My Master
.
Heart –
this drum within,
my sincerest friend,
who has given me a love whose
slightest tenderness will reach the Redeemer.
Like a river that runs in me,
it stems from a natural source;
the love that is in me
stems from the road
it designed for me.
.
From knowing me so well,
it takes me through time to see the world;
territories of passion.
Heart teaches me the courage to live;
throws me into the sea of love.
Within these good waters I will learn to sail –
as I am merely a pupil
who shall follow his tutor wherever he may lead.
.
…And my tutor is my heart,
this drum within,
my sincerest friend,
who has given me a love whose
slightest tenderness will reach the Redeemer.
Like a river that runs in me,
it stems from a natural source;
the love that is in me
stems from the road
it designed for me.
.
My tutor is my heart,
this drum within,
my sincerest friend.
Life – and Passion!
. . .
Milton Nascimento / Fernando Brant
Meu Mestre Coraçao
.
Coração
meu tambor do peito, meu amigo cordial
fez de mim um amador
que por um carinho sobe até o Redentor
o rio que corre em mim
vem dessa nascente seu leito natural
o amor que existe em mim
vem desse caminho de vida que ele me traçou
.
Por me saber de cor
me leva no tempo para o mundo conhecer
território da paixão
coração me ensina a coragem de viver
me joga no mar de amar
nessa água boa eu irei navegar
e eu sou um aprendiz
que segue seu mestre aonde ele for
.
E o meu mestre é o meu coração
meu tambor do peito meu amigo cordial
fez de mim um amador
que por um carinho sobe até o Redentor
vem dessa nascente seu leito natural
o amor que existe em mim
vem desse caminho de vida que ele me traçou
.
Meu mestre é o coração
meu tambor do peito, meu amigo cordial
– vida e paixão
. . .
Fernando Brant (1946-2015) was born in Minas Gerais state in Brazil. He would become well known as a poet, lyricist and journalist. In the 1960s he met singer-songwriter and guitarist Milton Nascimento, who was born in 1942 in Rio de Janeiro, but was raised in Minas Gerais by his adopting parents. The two first collaborated on the 1967 song Travessia (a later English-language version with different lyrics was called Bridges.) Heart is My Master / Meu Mestre Coraçao was featured on Nascimento’s 1987 album Yauaretê (Jaguar).
. . . . .
Earl McKenzie: cinco poemas del poemario “La hoja del almendro” / five poems from “The Almond Leaf”
Posted: August 27, 2016 Filed under: Earl McKenzie, English, ZP Translator: Alexander Best Comments Off on Earl McKenzie: cinco poemas del poemario “La hoja del almendro” / five poems from “The Almond Leaf”
Earl McKenzie
(nacido 1943, Mount Charles, St. Andrew, Jamaica)
El silencio es mi hogar
.
Si el oído es el último sentido que “va”,
según dicen,
entonces envíeme a la meta con
El Canon en Re Mayor por Pachelbel
pues la cosa final que oiré
es la capacidad para la belleza
del hombre pecador.
.
Si me afferaré tan tenazmente
a los ruidos de este mundo,
esto es porque
el sonido – sobre todo –
es la consecuencia más pura
del ser.
.
Si yo soltaría
tu belleza,
tu perfume,
y tu piel lisa,
me afferaré al sonido de tu voz.
.
Y si el sonido es
el vecino más cercano de la muerte,
pues este amante – yo –
sabe que el silencio es su casa.
. . .
Las ruedas de la guerra
.
Las ruedas de matanza por la guerra
están moviendo sobre el desierto
los camiones y tanques del ejército.
.
Entre los cuentos saliendo a la luz
hay una fotografía
de un chico refugiado
jugando con una rueda.
.
Yo, a la misma edad de él,
corría las ruedas
en caminos tranquilos
que hendieron colinas verdes
– sin ningunos soldados a la vista.
.
Pero este chico,
más que cuantos soldados,
entiende el júbilo del
ingenio de la rueda.
. . .
Jazz y Canto de Ave
.
Mientras escuchando
el saxofón de Coltrane
dando forma a una melodía exquisita
también yo oía
un pájaro cantando afuera.
.
El uno es arte,
según dicen,
un arreglo de sonidos,
estampado por la voluntad humana,
que tira enigmáticamente
a la experiencia del corazón.
.
El otro es un sonido
genéticamente programado
– quizás una llamada de apareamiento –
y moldeado por la evolución.
.
Pero los dos son divinos
– como la gramática –
ordenados en su manera.
.
Pues:
hay la divinidad
– seguramente –
en el jazz y en el canto de aves.
. . .
El análisis
.
Después del análisis de sangre
yo di un paseo en el centro comercial.
.
En la tienda
la música era empalagosa
mientras yo miraba las ropas que
llevare como un hombre enfermo.
.
En la librería
no había ningún volumen
que hablara de mi condición.
.
En el supermercado
compré la comida saludable
– pero demasiado tarde.
.
Mientras yo conducía a casa
me decía que
la enfermedad es algo tan natural
– como un río en torrente,
o una tormenta en el mar.
.
El resultado estaba negativo
– y alegremente.
. . .
La fuerza del arte
.
Cuando nos dimos cuenta de que
nuestras voces pueden volverse en
instrumentos musicales exquisitos;
.
que nuestros cuerpos pueden estar moldeados
en danzas poderosas;
.
que nuestras palabras pueden estar colocadas
en poemas y cuentos emotivos;
.
que podemos dar forma de declaraciones de la verdad
con el barro y la pintura;
.
que podemos erigir la arquitectura sublime
de las materias de esta tierra;
.
que la grande música está empotrada
en la madera y los metales y las pieles;
.
cuando descubrimos estas cosas
tropezamos con la potencia
– no el misterio –
del arte.
. . .
El profesor McKenzie ha dado lecciones sobre la Filosofía en la Universidad del Caribe (UWI) en Mona, Jamaica. Ha escrito dos novelas y publicó dos poemarios – Contra la linealidad cronológica (Against Linearity, 1993), y La hoja del almendro (The Almond Leaf, 2008).
. . . . .
Earl McKenzie
(born 1943, Mount Charles, St. Andrew, Jamaica)
Silence is My Home
.
If hearing is the last sense to go,
as they say,
then send me home with
Pachelbel’s Canon in D
so that the last thing I hear
is sinful man’s capacity for beauty.
.
If I will cling most tenaciously
to the noises of the world,
it is because
above all else
sound is the purest consequence
of being.
.
So if I let go
of your beauty,
your perfume,
and your smooth skin,
I will cling to the sound of your voice.
.
And if sound
is death’s nearest neighbour
this lover of stillness knows
that silence is my home.
. . .
Wheels of War
.
The killing wheels of war
move army trucks and tanks
into the desert.
.
Among the stories coming out
is a photograph
of a boy refugee
playing with a wheel.
.
At his age I ran wheels
on quiet roads
slicing green hills,
without a soldier in sight.
.
But this boy,
more than the soldiers,
knows the joy
of the invention of the wheel.
. . .
Jazz and Birdsong
.
While listening
to Coltrane’s saxophone
shaping an exquisite melody
I also heard a bird
singing outside.
.
One is art,
they say,
patterns of sound
arranged by human will
and mysteriously tugging
at the heart’s experience.
.
The other is genetically programmed sound,
a mating call, perhaps,
shaped by evolution.
.
Yet, so ordered,
both are divine as grammar.
.
There is divinity, surely,
in jazz and birdsong.
. . .
The Test
.
After the blood test
I went for a walk in the mall.
.
In the store
the music was sickly sweet
as I looked at the clothes
I might wear
as a sick man.
.
In the bookshop
not a single volume
spoke to my condition.
.
In the supermarket
I bought healthy food
too late.
.
As I drove home
I told myself
that sickness is as natural
as a river in spate
or a storm at sea.
.
The result was joyfully negative.
. . .
The Power of Art
.
When we discovered
.
that our voices can become
exquisite musical instruments;
.
that our bodies can be shaped
into powerful dances;
.
that our words can be arranged
into moving poems and stories;
.
that we can form clay and paint
into statements of truth;
.
that we can raise sublime architecture
from the substances of the earth;
.
that great music is embedded
in wood, metals and skins;
.
when we discovered these things
we came upon
not the mystery
but the power of art.
. . .
Earl McKenzie has lectured at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, as Professor in Philosophy. He has written novels and philosophical essays, as well as gathering together his poems into two collections – 1993’s Against Linearity, and 2008’s The Almond Leaf (from which the above poems have been chosen).
. . . . .
Gabriel Bamgbose: Three poems
Posted: August 16, 2016 Filed under: English, Gabriel Bamgbose Comments Off on Gabriel Bamgbose: Three poems
Gabriel Bamgbose (Ogun State, Nigeria)
Three Poems
Darkness
When you peep
Through the broken window
Of your broken heart
And all you could see is
darkness…
……………..Brim darkness
……………………..Thick darkness
……………..Dark darkness
Darker than… than
……………..Dark-dark darkness
Legions of horrific darkness
Forming its own sovereignty
Colliding with other darknesses
Already there, lurking elsewhere
Awaiting its doomsday
Spooky, fierce darkness
Coming out… coming…
Claiming its vast space
Crashing into emptiness
Of magnitude mass
You suddenly realize
How intensely you could
Become afraid
Of your own self.
The Gaze of Medusa
Come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
I know you have your received story
I know they have fashioned your mind
To believe what they think I am
But come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
It is the working of your own mind
It is what you believe me to be
That tells what becomes of you
Oh come, let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
You know in touch with each other
We know our flows and flaws
In touch with each other
We know our true stories
So come closer to me with your own mind
And let me cast on you
The gaze of Medusa
Then you will see
How truly beautiful I could be.
Holy Waters
I entered into the torrents
Of holy waters
I abandoned all other waters
Because the spirits in them
Could lock one up
In the trance of sin
Oh! Love froze my senses
My feeling on my own self
And I entered gullibly, feebly
Into the torrents
Of holy waters –
I almost drowned.
. . .
Gabriel Bamgbose is currently a Ph.D candidate in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and is the founding editor of Ijagun Poetry Journal. His work has appeared in Footmarks: Poems on One Hundred Years of Nigeria’s Nationhood, The Criterion, Lantern Magazine, Journal of Social and Cultural Analysis, and BareBack Magzine, among others. He is the author of the poetry collection, Something Happened: After the Rain.
.
Image: “Medusa” by sculptor Ubbo Enninga
. . . . .
Lorna Goodison: “Días del Bibliobús” (Bookmobile Days)
Posted: August 14, 2016 Filed under: English, Lorna Goodison, Spanish, ZP Translator: Alexander Best Comments Off on Lorna Goodison: “Días del Bibliobús” (Bookmobile Days)
Lorna Goodison (born 1947, Kingston, Jamaica)
Bookmobile Days
.
Reader 1
.
The one who was pressed
up against the door
clutching the last book borrowed;
book read by naked light bulb,
street lamp, bottle torch, or moonlight.
.
The child who’d cut ties
to blood lines and school friends
in order to make the acquaintance
of characters bound to become
trusted lifelong companions.
.
That one would brave blizzards,
extract swords from stones,
fly back to Guinea never ever
having eaten salt.
Fall in and out of doomed love,
forget tethered goats,
neglect to fetch water
in a tin that once brought kerosene
and so draw the ire of parents.
This is the one who would
climb aboard wide-eyed and greedy
for what was carried in the hold
of our brave new world caravel on wheels.
.
Reader II
.
She said: “I’d like a book of fairy tales, please.”
It was a weekday
but she was all Sunday clothes.
Pink frilly frock butterfly bows
white socks patent leather shoes.
She said her godmother had dressed her up
to come and visit the bookmobile.
. . .
Lorna Goodison (nace 1947, Kingston, Jamaica)
Días del Bibliobús
.
Lectora 1
.
Ella que presionó sobre la puerta,
agarrando el último libro prestado
– un libro leído por
una bombilla pelona / una farola / una linterna en botella /
la luz de luna.
.
La criatura que rompió la relación con
su linaje y camaradas de escuela
para conocer a
personajes destinados a volverse
compañeros leales de toda la vida.
.
Ella que desafiaba nevascas;
extraía espadas de las rocas;
volaba de vuelta de Guinea
jamás de los jamases
habiendo comido la sal.
Enamorarse de alguien / desencantarse del mismo
a causa del amor malhadado;
olvidar cuidar a las cabras atadas;
no cumplir con traer el agua en una lata
que contenía el queresén
– y de esa manera enfurecer a los padres.
Ésta es ella que se montara a la ‘carabela-sobre-ruedas’,
la carabela de nuestro ‘mundo feliz’;
ésta es ella: ingenua y ávida por
lo que llevaban en la bodega del ‘barco’.
.
Lectora 2
.
Ella dijo:
“Me gustaría un libro de cuentos de hadas – por favor.”
Durante un día de semana…pero
ella llevaba puesta su ropa de domingo:
un vestido de color rosa con volantes y lazos en forma de mariposa;
calcetines blancos con zapatos de charol.
La muchachita dijo que su madrina
había vestir elegante a ella – para venir a visitar el bibliobús.
. . .
Image at top: Cover of Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. This book is the subject of a companion poem to “Bookmobile Days” called “Tagore on the Bookmobile”.
Lorna Goodison lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she teaches at the University of Michigan. She also divides her time between her native Jamaica and Toronto, Ontario, Canada – just “up the road” from Michigan. The poem featured here is from her most recent poetry collection, Supplying Salt and Light, published by McClelland & Stewart in 2013; Goodison did the watercolour painting on the cover. Her first book of poems, Tamarind Season, from 1980, also included illustrations by her own hand. In 2013 Goodison was awarded Jamaica’s Order of Distinction for “outstanding achievements in Literature and Poetry.”
. . .
Un otro poema de Lorna Goodison / Another poem by Lorna Goodison: “Mi Testamento” / “My Will”
https://zocalopoets.com/category/poets-poetas/lorna-goodison/
. . . . .
Frances-Marie Coke: poems of nostalgia / poems of insight, reflecting upon a Jamaican past
Posted: August 12, 2016 Filed under: English, English: Jamaican Patois, Frances-Marie Coke Comments Off on Frances-Marie Coke: poems of nostalgia / poems of insight, reflecting upon a Jamaican past
“Washday by the River” by Jamaican artist Bernard Stanley Hoyes
Frances-Marie Coke (Jamaica)
River Women
.
Behind their barely-covered lips,
The Whisperers of Above Rocks huddled
in the no man’s land where housetops leaned
.
and clotheslines tilted, their arms akimbo
jutting out from hilly backsides, fingers jabbing
at each other’s brows, presiding over business
.
in the valley. Wielding bramble brooms
dragged across their piece of dust,
they swept up kass-kass with cut-eye,
.
frock-tail fanning an’ kiss-teet, passing sentence
on grudgefulness and bad mind, malice and red-eye ––
hot words spiced with vinegar and scotch bonnet.
.
They planted after-births and futures at the navel-string tree;
washed away bad luck with sinklebible and baptized
in healing streams; read meanings in the wind,
.
in deadening stares of three-foot horse, dogs
howling at full moons, headless sen-seh fowls fluttering
in the feathered blood spilled in time for Sunday lunch.
.
Long-robed, heads wrapped in calico, they journeyed
down dark mud-tracks to their sideways church,
there to sip white rum and rule the nine-night sankey.
.
Their faces wore each other’s rage and everything
that caused it –– (one more half-empty butterpan
de pickney bring up wid him two lef-han from riverside!)
.
They railed at daughters sent to better life in town,
ending up in bed and in the way for men
with nothing but their curly hair and two-toned shoes.
.
No yard was spared from throw-word
when river women draped their wash-pans with their legs,
flared their noses and their skirts, (tucked in where it mattered),
.
and punished the missis white sheets with Guinea Gold
and corn cob, muttering underneath their breaths
when stains betrayed dark secrets of Old Stony Hill.
.
By sunset they’d passed judgement on everything
that counted: clear skin, dark skin, brown skin ––
each with its own grade, depending on the hair ––
.
knotty-knotty, picky-picky, good or nice and long ––
every version praised or damned at the river-bank,
every son instructed how to lighten with a nice brown girl.
.
In time we knew our verdict: “Miss G. gran-pickney dem
have good colour and nice hair, but dat one wid
de mawga foot, she want some good home-training!”
.
The river murmured, minding its own business.
. . .
Idlewild in August
.
Far from the city rattle,
in my retreat behind the country piano,
its keys at rest from the gingery fingers
of a grandfather who loved and ruled
.
with few breaks in his silence, I stumbled
on a haven that was mine alone –– spread out
across old pages that splintered
as I turned them to unearth another time:
.
adventures that entranced, words that smelled
of sky and sea; of consolation brewed
in Limacol and Lipton’s tea,
of love outgrowing loss as Gramma
brushed my hair steeped in rosemary bush
we uprooted from the pearl-pebbles
strung out along our backyard beach.
.
Idlewild erupted every August
when Kingston schoolyards rested
from their noisy rows of prisoners in their blue
and white, with their inky fingers scrawling over
British kings and queens, parliaments and wars
that tossed their disconnected islands out to sea.
.
Along the razor rocks and seagrape bush
huddled round the water’s yawning edge,
we scampered after cowrie shells
and soldier crabs between our mugs of tambrin tea,
sweet corn and condense milk.
.
Now, children of the salt and sand, beguiled
by freedom in the wild, we arched our backs
against the wind and vanished in the eddies
of McCarthy’s pool, defying sea-egg and mermaid,
till one by one our heads bobbed up anew,
like calabashes floating in the unbroken blue
stretched out along the spine of Idlewild.
.
Seasoned to the bone,
our sinews contoured on the edge-cliffs
of the creek, we threw off British history,
simmered in our praisesongs, gospels ringing
in our ears, laying tracks of who we were,
of what we would become!
. . .
Lessons for Young Women
.
Proper English words were not enough
to teach the serious lessons girls must learn.
.
Only stories of who fell, or proverbs in Jamaica talk
could do the job. From morning until night
.
doomsday sayings echoed, breaking silences
that drizzled in between: what it meant to be a big girl,
.
knowing only one woman can live inside the house
so since is not you paying rent, it can’t be you.
.
If you flying past yuh nest, tek sleep mark death
and call back; otherwise you soon find out
.
what happen to dem force-ripe girls
who paint them lip and ass in red
.
and hang up hang up at the gate, with all dem
old bwoy bwoy from down the road. Show me yuh company
.
an ah tell you who you are, for crab who walk too much
always los’ him claw and if you sleep wid dawg
.
you must get up wid flea. For what sweet nanny goat
always run dem belly, and what gone bad a morning
.
can’t come good a evening! So if you think you bad,
an’ you ears don’t have no hole, gwan you ways
.
but mine you don’t cut off you nose an spite you face!
. . .
One of Us is Missing
.
We loved you only yesterday when we were young;
when stars stopped by to hear you sing.
.
We loved you only yesterday
when moonlit stairways led to magic kingdoms
and golden poui petals cushioned every fall.
We loved you only yesterday when we whispered
all our dreams into the Mona sky.
.
The stars stopped by last night to hear you sing
but found you locked in silence.
At dusk a hand fell on your shoulder,
taking –– your fingers
groping in the darkness for a light.
.
You never knew the bow was bent
–– the arrow drawn and stiff ––
until you heard the songbird in the evening
and smiled into the night.
St. Mary’s Church_Port Maria, Jamaica: photograph copyright Mark Phinn
The Search
.
How strange that we should sip at once
both peace and poison from this cup
raised by priests and sorcerers,
chanting alleluias amid the incense-bearing altar boys,
insensate hordes of pilgrims lost,
groping in the teeming murk for light,
finding only the eternity of night.
.
How strange to search,
to finger baubles,
not knowing there’s a difference
between the thinly layered gloss we crave
and hammered gold that outlasts the grave.
. . .
Jamaican-born Frances-Marie Coke has lectured at the University of the West Indies, and has also been a high-school teacher and guidance counsellor. The Balm of Dusk Lilies, her first book, came out in 2001. The poems featured above are from Intersections, published in 2010 by Peepal Tree Press.
. . . . .
Sensitivity and Strength: poems of Delores Gauntlett
Posted: August 8, 2016 Filed under: Delores Gauntlett, English, English: Jamaican Patois Comments Off on Sensitivity and Strength: poems of Delores Gauntlett
Delores Gauntlett
A Sense of Time
.
I drive past my father’s grave
and past the place where I began.
That swing-bridge to my childhood games
is now a town to which I seldom return.
There the headstones wear familiar names,
and there I turned the page
at five to my first big word,
repeating it until it blurred.
.
The church grew smaller in the rear
-view mirror; my face awash in the wind,
I approached the curves I knew by heart,
then drove the silent miles to Flat Bridge.
The sun going down behind the hill
hauled its net of shadow as it fell.
. . .
On Growing Tired of Her Complaints
“One pound of fretting can’t repay one ounce of debt.”
(Jamaican proverb)
.
As far away as you are now from childhood
is the gap between ideas and reality,
the air tensed with what you took pleasure in,
doodling in complaints, not knowing what to do ––
not knowing what accidental turn you took,
that blew everything entirely out of whack
though the worst of the rain has come and gone.
Surrounded by whatever else you happened on,
numbed by repetition, eyes clenched,
you cannot catch the rhythm of the wind,
indecipherable; you move from room to room.
.
I knew you when a day made a difference,
when you’d look out of the window and gaze
at anything: a bee, the dew drop from a leaf
in the spot by the still pond under the trees.
Now you linger by the bridge where what’s unlived
is not available, where even a mild occurrence
shapes a stronghold of might-have-been, of this and that;
and nothing I say today
will be any more convincing than the last.
Meantime the rest of the world unfurls, shading
the retreating back of history, and what happens, happens.
. . .
Love Changes Everything
.
At the window where our two reflections
meet, pulled as to a magnet to the rhythm
of Zamfir’s panflute whistling its seduction
Love, love changes everything…
Sometimes the body needs to set itself on fire,
to consume the dry leaves and twigs as if swept
by a magic wind to a new view of desire,
barefoot, heart racing from the outset,
flayed like an upheld palm in the rain.
Then work defers to moments that assume
good reason to be here and love, not live in vain,
gauging time like an echo in a vacant room.
We, once strangers on the eve of first sight,
blush through blue August, whispering goodnight.
. . .
Another Mystery of Love
.
He loved her, but he used his love like a rope:
frayed from their tug-of-war of the heart,
stretched taut across his frightening temper
till he fell flat on his back to win.
Meanwhile she slipped away with something heartrending
caught in her eye,
diverting her attention by making bread,
kneading until the sun burned out,
slapping the dough with the heel of her hand
to revenge herself
against the familiar words which quailed her
into thinking everything she did was wrong.
Then he, looking as though it had never happened,
and she, never looking at another man,
stared out of the window, wondering at the bird
clinging to a swaying stalk in silence,
waiting
like a patient thought.
. . .
Love Letters
.
At first it was your slick quips
that quickened me to sit down and take notice ––
when to my one-sentence reply you said
I reminded you of Lord Wavell,
the British general in World War II
who, the more adulation he received,
the more taciturn he became,
that brevity, brevity was his forte,
that his strength lay in silence.
.
That was the hook that lifted my attention,
and when it seemed you guessed what I was wearing
the first intensity warmed the air to now.
You wound me a path along windswept beaches
to a place unmarked on any map
where we resumed our secret walk with words
guardedly wrapped around ourselves,
though between each line the meaning was implied.
.
And when I wrote to you my reason
why I couldn’t meet you face to face, I lied.
I wanted instead to lean into your hands
away from the tangibles of daily life,
wearing the countenance that each word bears
where nothing is well founded; yet
when you invited me to sit down, and I did,
I understood more and less at the same time.
. . .
Writing a Poem in Metre
.
Takes rain, the racket
in a madman’s head
and strains it
into sonata.
(Wayne Brown: ‘Critic’)
.
Nothing on the page made sense.
I was on the brink of giving up
fretting in pentameter,
feeling like a fish pulled from the sea
into the fierce sunlight,
when your no-fooling-around approach
and a direct heart sent me to work.
That each line should slip under the skin,
as in the blood, fleshed out from the nuance
of sound on sound, as in the beat of a heart!
I pushed off into the swell,
swimming across the bay of iambics:
three, four, five beats underwater,
pulling, pulling against the tension,
taking a turn on my back,
watching the water scatter from my hands,
splash, splash, each slow spondee
stretching my thought beyond recollection.
.
Call it the music in the traffic-hiss,
entertaining an early morning thought,
or the climb uphill to the first clearing
to move around in when a foot doesn’t fit.
To one who asks
“What’s the good of all that?”
I can only speak for me,
that it discovers what I have to say,
takes my hand and leads me down a lane
from which I can take my time returning.
. . .
That Sunday Morning
.
She was not begging for forgiveness when she knelt
facing the wall, her head flung back
as if preparing to hold a flashlight to the eyes of Jesus.
Full of argument, raw with energy,
something shouting in her breast flashed clear again
to the August afternoon when the death winds came
to the broken sidewalk that narrows to a lane,
when, after the bullet wrapped itself in silence,
it took the colour from the photo in her purse.
.
She looked in vain for answers
to what nags her sleep, night after night,
remembering the hour when the sun went down burning
over the yard of scratching chickens, digging
for the words that would tell her all would be well
while the clock ticked to the wrong time.
Talking to Him as if to a next door neighbour
she stood, knowing her anger was not a bluff,
and, with the world still coming to an end,
danced her way up to a victory hallelujah!––
a pitch this poem cannot put into 20 lines.
. . .
The Reckoning
A nuh di same day leaf drop in a water it rotten.
(Jamaican proverb)
.
Years later, he walks beside the shadow
of the past, to the beat of the grim consequences
he brought upon himself in surprising ways.
In middle-age he might have been content,
had he foreseen that as time went by
his antics would lead to where love pulled away
to be as far from him as possible
when his expression betrayed no signs of change.
Blinded to the cause of his predicament,
he walks, with nothing open for discussion,
not knowing he’s been struck by his own hand.
. . .
In Limbo
Yuh cyan sow corn and expec’ fi reap peas.
(Jamaican proverb)
.
Unable in the end to separate what’s done from what
should have been done, the truth
undid what you so earnestly embodied.
.
There’s nothing for it:
your life requires a harder pardon.
Cry all you want,
.
but for a miracle: your promises have gone
like smoke
on a stray breeze up into a cloud,
.
grey from overuse,
.
a cloud from which the night fills in
the disquiet of the past,
and what was hidden is rising
.
to the surface, like a dank mist after rain.
. . .
From a Cove in St. Ann
.
From under the noonday shadow of a rock
I stare long and hard into the blue
sea, breaking one thought to ponder through
to the heart of a concern, taking stock
of a home where shocking news is the norm.
It’s hard to put a finger on the lessons
to be learned; as when a tense bow misses
a shifting target, each moment ends in doubt.
On a day like this, besieged between ‘forlorn’
and a place riddled with brutalities, I
distract myself with the waves rushing to shore,
and the blessings one must create to know the sea’s.
I lift my hope over the open water
with its flush of foam which alters in the sand,
filtering its sound to the hill as if to find
an echo far from the turbulent deep. Dusk
drops over the trees where some unknown soul
stumbled once, with one hand breaking his fall.
. . .
Chances Are
.
Coming in from the streets that mock delight
I’m caught between two streams of thought:
old news, and the need to shift my mind to write.
A melting candle moves tobacco from the flat,
and, short of throwing both hands up in the air,
solutioned-out in a world where all’s been said.
I plan never to compare today
but do what I have to, pushing ahead,
fishing around these potential days
in a land spinning on the edge of nerves
where someone’s always leaving, and someone else is busy.
Rights are taken further away from those they serve.
Chances are the prime minister will not come to see
me or my friends. He’s busy. So are we.
. . .
The above poems are from the 2005 collection The Watertank Revisited
published by Peepal Tree Press, and are © Delores Gauntlett.
Delores Gauntlett was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, in 1949. Her first poetry collection, Freeing Her Hands to Clap, was published in 2001. She was recipient of the David Hough Literary Award from The Caribbean Writer in 1999, and poems by Gauntlett have won prizes in the annual literary-arts competitions of The Observer.
. . . . .
Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literary pioneer
Posted: August 6, 2016 Filed under: English, English: Jamaican Patois, Una Marson Comments Off on Una Marson: poems of a Jamaican literary pioneer
Una Marson (1905-1965)
JAMAICA
.
J ust a lovely little jewel floating on fair Carib’s breast,
A ll a-glittering in her verdue ‘neath a blazing tropic sky.
M ust have been part of Eden, it’s so full of peace and rest,
A nd the flowers in their splendour make you feel it’s good to die
I n a spot that’s so near heaven where one never feels depressed,
‘Cause Dame Nature makes you lazy and Dame Fortune lingers nigh,
A nd you feel just like a fledgling in your mother’s cosy nest.
. . .
I Cannot Tell
.
I cannot tell why I who once was gay
And never knew the burden of a sigh
Now sit and pass the weary hours away,
And never have a care for what goes by.
.
I cannot tell why oft the teardrops rise
And my sad heart lies leaden in my breast,
And in my mind these anxious thoughts arise
For no more am I happy with the rest.
.
I cannot tell why life is not the same
And my heart answers not to music’s plea,
Or why I start whene’er I hear your name
And in my dreams no other face I see:
.
I cannot tell why I should wish to die,
Now that the time has come to say goodbye.
.
(1930)
.
. . .
Love’s Lament
.
I cannot let you hold me in your arms
And listen while you talk of trivial things;
It pains my heart thus to resist your charms
And see the longings of my soul take wings.
.
I cannot feel the pressure of your hands
Without the wish to hold them to my lips,
I have no strength to face life’s big demands
While daily from my heart your image slips,
.
I cannot bear the thought of losing you.
Yet still your presence brings me bitter pain.
The happy days gone by we will not rue ––
Their tender mem’ries still to us remain;
.
But oh my heart, I cannot bid you stay,
Though as you go you take my life away.
.
(1930)
.
. . .
The Peanut Boy
.
Lord, look upon this peanut boy,
He’s rough and coarse and rude;
He has been selling all the day,
His words are very crude.
.
But, Lord, he’s worn and weary now,
See how he stands asleep;
His head is resting on the post,
The basket at his feet.
.
Dear Lord, he has not sold them all,
But he has done his best:
And, while he stands and sleeps awhile,
With sweet dreams make him blest.
.
And, Lord, when I shall fall asleep
With my tasks incomplete,
Remember I was weary, Lord,
And give me peaceful sleep.
. . .
Another Mould
.
You can talk about your babies
With blue eyes and hair of gold,
But I’ll tell you ’bout an angel
That’s cast in another mould.
.
She is brown just like a biscuit
And she has the blackest eyes
That don’t for once remind you
Of the blue of tropic skies.
.
And her hair is black and shiny
And her little teeth are pearls,
She’s just a year, I’ll tell you,
But the best of baby girls.
.
O, she’s sweeter than the sweetest
Of all babies ‘neath the sun,
And I feel that I could eat her,
Thinking she’s a sugar bun.
.
O, little ivory babies
Are as sweet as they can be,
But give me my brown skin cherub
Still a-dangling on my knee.
.
(1931)
. . .
Education
.
In South Africa £25 per head per annum is spent on educating the white child. The government gives a subsidy of £2 3s. 7d. per head to the missionary bodies who have undertaken the education of 300,000 black children of the 1,100,000 who should be educated. (W. G. Ballinger at W.I.L. Conference.)
.
It must be by oppression; and, for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at them,
But for my countrymen. They would be learned: ––
How that might change their nature, there’s the question,
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Teach him? –– that; ––
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of learning is when it is given
To subject races: And, to speak truth of Negroes,
I have known when they have turned to serve us
Once they are taught. But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambitious ladder
Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: So Negroes may:
Then, lest they may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing they are,
Fashion it thus; that what they are, when learned
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore, think them as the serpents
Which, hatch’d, would as their kind grow mischievous;
And keep them ignorant.
.
(With apologies to Shakespeare)
.
(1935)
. . .
The Stranger
.
You liked talking to people like me
You said, with a wistful smile
That enchanted me, so the pause
That came before I spoke
Must have seemed strange to you,
And when I returned the compliment
So sweetly made, I still thought
Of the wistfulness of your smile.
.
So you like talking to people like me,
Friend with the wistful smile,
To foreign girls who are brown of skin
And have black kinky hair
And have strange black eyes.
.
You like to hear the tales I tell
Of a tropic Paradise,
Of sunkissed woods and mountains high
Of skies that are bluer than ever
Skies are blue in your nordic clime:
Of magic sunsets and marvellous seas,
Of waterfalls clattering down,
Stars so near, and the moon so large,
And fireflies, stars of the earth.
.
I like to listen to you,
Friend with the wistful smile.
It’s not to hear of your great country
And tales of your marvellous land,
But to watch the wistful smile
That plays around your mouth,
The strange look in your eyes
And hear the calm sweet tone of your voice.
. . .
Home Thoughts
.
June is drawing near
And in my sun-kissed isle
The Poinciana with its flaming blossom
Casts its spell o’er all the land.
These mighty trees in regal robes
Now call the land to worship,
And the bees, hungry for hidden honey,
Swarm among its blossoms and buzz and buzz,
And the blossoms laugh and yield
Shedding their sweet perfume;
They make a crown of golden dust
To beautify the honeybee.
.
There on the hillside, ‘mid a tuft
Of dark green trees, towers the Poinciana
Stretching its branches eagerly
To watch the children passing by.
I see a tree I used to love
Whose red and golden glory
Has thrilled my soul with wonder;
O, I remember that glad June,
So long ago it seems,
‘Twas Harvest in the Village Church
And the merry school children
Cut great branches of Poinciana
And made a radiant glory of the Church.
.
June comes again and Poinciana trees
Now blossom in my sunkissed isle
And I am here in London, and the flowers
Of dainty shades and delicate perfumes
Stir my heart and wake my love,
But it is the flaming glory
Of Poinciana trees in fair Jamaica
That my lone heart is homing.
I might sing of fragrant Myrtle blossoms
Whiter than snow and sweeter than honey,
Of pink and white June roses,
Of Jessamines, Hibiscus, Begonias,
Of Bougainvillea and Cassia,
But the Flaming Poinciana
Calls to me across the distance
Calling, calling me home.
.
O pride and glory of our tropic Isle,
As thy red and golden petals
Drip blood drops on the sod
That thou mayst bring forth
Mighty pods of fertile seed,
So children of your tropic land
With broken hearts that bleed
In foreign lands afar
Strain every nerve to bring forth
Fruit that may enrich the race
And are anew inspired
With hope and loyal longing ––
Hope that thy red and golden banners
Now unfurled through all the land
May call men’s hearts
To bow at Beauty’s shrine ––
And loyal longing that awakes
And claims the best thy sons and daughters give.
.
O Fair Jamaica! my thoughts go home to you,
In love and loyalty I shall for aye be true.
. . .
Nightfall
.
How tender the heart grows
At the twilight hour,
More sweet seems the perfume
Of the sunless flower.
.
Come quickly, wings of night,
The twilight hurts too deep;
Let darkness wrap the world around,
My pain will go to sleep.
. . .
My Philosophy
(as expounded by a Market Woman)
.
(Market woman walking quickly ahead of her friend. She carries a huge basket on her head. She swings both hands violently as she addresses the friend close behind her without turning):
.
“You can tan up talk wid him,
If you and him is companion
Me and him is no companion.”
.
(Second market woman following quickly at her heels):
.
“Me and him is companion, yes,
Me and him is companion
Me and all de wide worl’ is companion
For dere is nobody better dan me
And I is not better dan nobody.”
.
(1937)
.
The Test
.
The test of true culture
Is the ability
To move among men,
East or West,
North of South,
With ease and confidence,
Radiating the pure light
Of a kindly humanity.
. . .
Politeness
.
They tell us
That our skin is black
But our hearts are white.
.
We tell them
That their skin is white
But their hearts are black.
. . .
Frozen
(Winter 1941)
.
Europe is frozen.
It is too cold for birds to sing,
For children to make snowmen,
For rivers to splash and sparkle,
For lovers to loiter in the snowlight.
.
The heart of humanity is frozen.
It is too cold for Poets to sing.
. . .
Una Marson, of Santa Cruz, Saint Elizabeth parish, was the youngest of six children born to Rev. Solomon Isaac, a Baptist parson, and Ada Marson.
In 1928 she launched her own magazine in Kingston, Jamaica – The Cosmopolitan – which dealt with local, proto-feminist, and workers’ rights issues. Her first book of poems she self-published in 1930: Tropic Reveries. It was followed by Heights and Depths in 1931, and a play, At What a Price, performed at the Ward Theatre in Kingston. In 1937 she published The Moth and The Star. Marson spent time in London, England, from 1932-36, and again from 1938-45 (the duration of WWII); it was during the war years that her work with the BBC lead to the creation of the Caribbean Voices programme. In her later years she divided her time between Jamaica and Washington, D.C., and it is now known that she suffered from clinical depression. She died of a heart attack in 1965.
.
We are grateful to Alison Donnell (Una Marson: Selected Poems, Peepal Tree Press, 2011) for providing biographical details and a description of the social and political context for Una Marson’s life and work.
. . . . .
KULTURA Filipino Arts Festival, August 5th to 7th, in Toronto!
Posted: August 5, 2016 Filed under: Bienvenido C. Gonzalez, Edwin A. Lozada, Eileen R. Tabios, English, H. Francisco V. Peñones, Ilocano, Jon Pineda, Patrick Rosal, Rhodora V. Peñaranda, Spanish, Tagalog / Filipino, Victor P. Gendrano Comments Off on KULTURA Filipino Arts Festival, August 5th to 7th, in Toronto!
. . .
2016 marks the 11th year for Kultura, which emerged from the youth-led Kapisanan Phillippine Centre for Arts & Culture – a small yet ambitious initiative based out of a store-front on Augusta Avenue in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood.
The Kultura festival now celebrates the vibrant, contemporary creative expression of Filipino-Canadians. This is an important event for dialogue within the community, as well as for sharing a deeper understanding of Filipino culture and experience with the broader communities of Toronto – beyond the limiting clichés of “cultural costumes and food”. Kultura features multiple art disciplines, including culinary and fashion. Kultura aims to discuss the Filipino diaspora in Canada and to elevate Filipino-Canadian culture from the perception that it is flat and static to one that is multi-dimensional and active.
.
Kultura is the brainchild of the Kapisanan Centre, a charitable community organization with strong youth leadership. Kapisanan has created a safe space for Filipino-Canadian youth, both second generation and newcomers, to overcome multiple barriers that keep them from meaningful engagement in society. To explore identity, to foster pride and self-confidence – that’s Kapisanan!
. . .
Some contemporary Filipino-in-diaspora poetry…
Victor P. Gendrano (California)
Japanese Haiku
. . .
ospital silid hintayan
ang plastik na mga bulaklak
palaging bukad
.
waiting room
the plastic flowers
always in bloom
. . .
pinagbiling bahay
puno ng halakhak
ng maga bata
.
sold house
children’s laughter echoes
from its bare walls
.
(2005)
. . .
Japanese Tanka
. . .
chopping onions
enough excuse
to shed my tears
as I cook for myself
this New Year’s eve
.
di lang sibuyas
sanhi ng pagluha
kundi sa pangungulila
pagluluto sa sarili
ngayong bagong taon
. . .
scent of jasmine wafts
through her open door
this sultry evening
she calls him to say
don’t be late coming
.
the torn jacket
and worn-out cane
lie near a trash bin
his chuckle still echoes
from the empty bed
.
(2007)
. . .
Aloneness (a Korean Sijo)
.
the visiting son laments
his loss of their backyard tree
.
where as a teen he carved a heart
to express his very first love
.
his widower dad explains
twice there I tried to hang myself
. . .
Alheizmer Disease
.
as I brush mom’s golden hair
she keeps talking to unseen friends
.
she accepts me now as a friend
in the hospice where she lives
.
sometimes I wonder if she knows
I am her least-liked daughter
.
(2007)
. . .
Victor P. Gendrano is a retired librarian from the Los Angeles County Public Library. He completed his Bsc in the Phillippines and his Msc at Syracuse University in New York state. From 1987 to 1999 he edited Heritage Magazine, an English-language quarterly. His website, Haiku and Tanka Harvest, focuses on his poetry in a variety of structured forms and styles, as well as free verse in English and Tagalog. Mr. Gendrano is the author of Rustle of Bamboo Leaves: selected haiku and other poems, published in 2005.
. . .
H. Francisco V. Peñones, Jr.
Homage to Frida
(On the Centennial of her Birth)
.
Kahlo: kaluluwa: (n). Tagalog for soul ––
O Soul of my bleeding heart pigeon-
holed in tin retablos hung in antiseptic wards
unwind your bandaged flesh and let me in
your body its plains of crumbling rocks
and howling dust is no strange country
to me. Buko kanakong estranyo ‘di.
Back home, the land cracks and opens wide
throwing up the bodies dumped at night.
Its womb refusing now any stirring of seedling
despite so much marrows in its furrows.
O Nuestra Señora de Dolores y Tristezas*
wrap me in your leafy arms as you did
Diego Rivera or yourself in infants’ bodies
yet with your lusting faces in a kind of pietà,
in a loving moment caged in the canvas.
Arog ka kanakong banwaan, (like my country)
Natusok naman ako. (I am pierced too.)
Pero en sus autoretratos por ejemplo**,
.
I am not pricked by the thorns of the cactus
which thrusts up like a pen against the sky
and my brows are as high and thick and black
as your brushes and your gaze –– a doll’s,
set in place and silent in a corner yet forever.
. . .
*Our Lady of Sorrows and Sadness
**But in her self-portraits, for example
. . .
Self Portents from a Crystal Ball
.
Between the onyx equinox
and the Martian meridian
your Saturn son is on the ascendant
towards the power clique.
Rorschach stains
whirl nebulous as violet capes
worn in Salamanca:
Beware of men in ties,
they shake your hands while
coming out straight from the john.
Swirling lights tie up
the head and the tail, a circular
tale and mandala of survival and decency
you may well just be
heading for St. Francis Alley.
.
Acid rain dust leaks out
slimy green in brain drain canals:
invest in futures, better still
the dioroxine fuel yet to be found
and named.
.
Some silicone spilled semen
unearth Buddy Holly, a boozed
night out in Malate
and the apparition in the 7th Virgo
of one claiming paternity.
Raspy grains the pores of skin
up close your nose oooom
a hint of civet in heat:
go pick a lady in the primary
though you keep a red card
in your wallet for lemme see…
. . .
H. Francisco V. Peñones, Jr., has studied in the MFA Creative Writing program at San Jose State University, and is acknowledged as a pioneer in the renaissance of writing literature in the Bikol language of his native Phillippines. Peñones’ first poetry collection, entitled Ragang Rinaranga (Belovéd Land) was published in 2006.
. . .
Rhodora V. Peñaranda
Great Expectation
.
The light goes off in this town of rationed power.
Brief dark shadows up and down the road.
.
A village dog picks up her scent and begins to bark.
Out of the sky, a flood of darkness with invisible beasts
.
bounding over the street and wedging into the heart.
She comes home, and out of the steaming dark,
.
her little brother, the boy like a cat waiting all night
purring for a rubbing on his back, leaps to his feet,
.
begging her to stay. She flicks her fan to spread the coolness,
and he gropes for the arts of her comfort, the tucking
.
into the soft bed, rocking him to the wind’s mothering.
But she is hurrying. She does not feel the present under her feet.
.
She does not know the future. She does not have the past.
She passes through the rooms and gathers only tedium’s grief,
.
the unwashed growth of things crowded with details, details
accelerating with the pressure of wars around her, so she leaves
.
in the veiled cold of the room,
the soft gestures curled inside the glass of a burning lamp.
Leaves him instead the words that order him
.
to face it like a man leaving him alone on a night like this
where only the dead walk, to conjure the man he has yet to be.
.
(2007)
. . .
Rhodora V. Peñaranda lives in New York state. Two of her published volumes of poetry include Touchstone (2007) and Unmasking Medusa (2008).
. . .
Edwin A. Lozada
Kansion
(in the Ilocano language)
.
Agtaytayab
Purao
Nga kalapati
Ti rimwar
Diay nabanglo
Nga sabong
Purao ken kiaw
Kiay nakaturog
Nga kalachuchi
.
Agtaytayab
Purao
Nga kalapati
Diay puso na
Agliplipias
Ti kansion
Kolor ti rosas
Ken gumamela
Nga awan pay
Ti nakangeg
.
Papanam ngay
Billit
Nga naulimek,
Sika
Ti makapagtalna
Diay langit?
Sinno ngay
Ti makangeg
Dagita regalo
Nga rumrumwar
Diay pusum?
.
Nakadanon
Idiay karayan
Ket inungwanna
Idi kuan nagpukawen
.
Didiay karayan
Agkankanta
Napunpunno ti sampaga
Rosal, rosas
Ken gumamela
. . .
Canción
.
volando va
la paloma
blanca
que salió
de la flor
perfumada
alba y ámbar
de la plumeria
adormecida
.
va volando
la paloma
blanca
su corazón desbordado
derrama
canciones
color de rosas
e hibisco
que todavía no
se han oído
.
¿adónde vas
ave callada
y mansa
tú
que apaciguas
el cielo?
¿quién sino tú
oye
los obsequios
brotando
de tu corazón?
.
a la faz del río
llegó y se acercó
dejándole un beso
y entonces desapareció
.
el río
cantando
colmado de sampaguitas
gardenias, rosas
e hibiscos
. . .
Song
.
in the midst
of flight
a white dove
emerged
from the perfumed
amber and ivory
blossom
of the plumeria
lost in slumber
.
watch it fly
as white as the clouds
the dove
with a heart
overflowing
with song
colour of roses
and hibiscus
none yet
has heard
.
where do you go
bird
so quiet and meek
you who can
appease
the heavens?
who but you
can hear
the gifts
coming forth
from your heart?
.
towards the river
the dove drew near
kissed its water and then
disappeared
.
the river
singing and flowing
with gardenias
jazmine, roses
and hibiscus
. . .
Edwin A. Lozada is a poet and translator. He also edited the volume Field of Mirrors: an Anthology of Philippine American Writers, published in 2008 by Philippine American Writers & Artists, Inc.
. . .
Patrick Rosal / Aracelis Girmay
Lamento del Gallo
.
querida gallina caída
cuéntame la historia de una semilla
que contenía
todo el universo en una espina
que picó el ojo
de la noche
me das sed y seda
.
y no te vas
y no te vas
.
y si me enseñas
la ventana de tu boca
te sequiré
por las multitudes de mentirosos
que dicen
no iré
no iré
.
ay gallina
dime algo de tu vestida tan amable
y como robaste la voz de otra ave
.
animal tú eres
animal tú eres
tan bravona
.
se cree que las estrellas fueron hechas
por una sola clave
.
y me haces buscar
por las ruinas del corazón
robándolas de los dientes de esa tierra
.
y aún escucho las susurraciones p’arriba
y no te vas en seguida
.
y no te vas
no te vas
.
querida gallina caída
sueñas sin ignorar el frío
ni el agua ni cuchillo
los lobos aúllan los versos más secretos
no hay nombre que niegue ese sonido completo
.
rompe los cristales con tus lamentos
las torres de arena y de cemento
.
manda a los gobernadores que bajen
entre las alas y tu penúltimo viento
te prometen una bala o una canción
te las prometen
te prometen
.
y no te vas
. . .
Rooster’s Lament
by Aracelis Girmay and Patrick Rosal
(English translation)
.
beloved fallen hen
tell me the story of a seed
that held
the whole universe in a thorn
that pricked the eye
of evening
.
you give me thirst and silk
.
and you don’t go
and you don’t go
.
and if you show me
the window of your mouth
i’ll follow you
through the multitudes of liars
that say
i won’t go
i won’t go
.
oh hen
tell me something about your delightful costume
and how you robbed the voice of another bird
.
animal you are
animal you are
so brave
.
it’s believed that the stars were made
by a single key
.
and you make me search
through the ruins of the heart
robbing them of the teeth of that land
.
and still i listen to the whispers above
and you don’t go
.
lovely fallen hen
you dream without ignoring the cold
nor the water nor the knife
.
the wolves howl their most secret verses
there is no name that denies that complete sound
.
smash the mirrors with your laments
the towers of sand and of cement
order the governors to descend
among the wings and your penultimate wind
they promise you a bullet or a song
they promise them to you
they promise
.
and you don’t go
. . .
Patrick Rosal has authored My American Kundiman, and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, which won the Global Filipino Literary Award and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Members’ Choice Award – respectively.
.
Aracelis Girmay is of Eritrean, Puerto Rican, and African-American descent. A writer of poetry, essays, and fiction, she earned an MFA from New York University.
. . .
Eileen R. Tabios
Die We Do
.
Die
we do
as much as
.
we live. Then
we write: right
.
what
we lived
when we write.
. . .
Morir Hacemos
.
Morir,
lo hacemos
tanto como vivir.
.
Entonces,
nosotros escribimos:
corregimos aquello que
.
vivimos
cuando, así,
nosotros lo escribimos.
. . .
Tabios’ poem originally appeared in The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes (Marsh Hawk Press, 2007).
Translation into Spanish / Traducción del inglés al español:
Rebeka Lembo
. . .
Jon Pineda
Matamis
.
One summer in Pensacola,
I held an orange this way,
flesh hiding beneath
the texture of the rind,
then slipped my thumbs
into its core & folded it
open, like a book.
.
When I held out the halves,
the juice seemed to trace
the veins in my arms
as it dripped down to my elbows
& darkened spots of sand.
We were sitting on the beach then,
the sun, spheres of light within each piece.
I remember thinking, in Tagalog,
the word matamis is sweet in English,
though I did not say it for fear
of mispronouncing the language.
.
Instead, I finished the fruit & offered
nothing except my silence, & my father,
who pried apart another piece, breaking
the globe in two, offered me half.
Meaning everything.
. . .
Birthmark
.
After they make love, he slides down so his face rests near her waist.
The light by the bed casts its nets that turn into shadows. They both
fall asleep. When he wakes, he finds a small patch of birthmarks on
her thigh, runs his finger over each island, a spec of light brown
bundled with others to form an archipelago on her skin. For him, whose
father is from the Philippines, it is the place he has never been, filled
with hillsides of rice & fish, different dialects, a family he wants to
touch, though something about it all is untouchable, like love,
balanced between desire & longing, the way he reaches for her now, his
hand pressed near this place that seems so foreign, so much a part of
him that for a moment, he cannot help it, he feels whole.
. . .
The two poems above are from Jon Pineda’s 2004 collection Birthmark, winner of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry.
. . .
Bienvenido C. Gonzalez
I Quit
.
BEAT A BAD
……………..HABIT
BY REDUCING
………………A BIT
DAILY EVERY
…………………BIT
TILL YOU RID OF
…………………..IT
Zócalo Poets 