ERIN BELIEU [8551]

Erin Belieu

(Omaha, EEUU, 1967)

Sus poemas han aparecido en las principales revistas estadounidenses. Licenciada en Poesía por la Ohio State University y la Universidad de Boston, en la actualidad ejerce la docencia en la Florida State University. El Boston Book Review ha escrito que la de Belieu es «una voz que parece en parte Emily Dickinson y en parte Courtney Love, pero que siempre está lista para sorprender, asombrar y, en última instancia, desafiar cualquier comparación». 

Premios:

1994 National Poetry Series, for Infanta, selected by Hayden Carruth

Ohioana Award

Society of Midland Authors Award.

Obra:

"For Catherine: Juana, Infanta of Navarre", AGNI 56, 2002

"The Last Of The Gentlemen Heartbreakers"; "In Ecstasy"; "Of The Poet’s Youth", Reading Between A&B, Fall 2007

"Two Weeks On The Island", electronic poetry review

"The Birthmark", Ploughshares, Spring 2003 [dead link]

Infanta. Copper Canyon Press. 1995. ISBN 978-1-55659-101-3.

One Above and One Below. Copper Canyon Press. 2000. ISBN 978-1-55659-144-0.

Black Box. Copper Canyon Press. 2006. ISBN 978-1-55659-251-5.

Antologías:

Rita Dove, David Lehman, ed. (2000). The Best American poetry, 2000. Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-84281-3.

Michael Collier, ed. (2000). "Radio Nebraska". The new American poets. UPNE. ISBN 978-0-87451-964-8.

Glennis Byron, Andrew J. Sneddon, ed. (2008). "Tick". The body and the book: writings on poetry and sexuality. Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-2422-9.

William J. Walsh, ed. (2006). Under the rock umbrella: contemporary American poets, 1951-1977. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-88146-047-6.

Traducción y nota: Natalia Carbajosa

Epitalamio

la criatura de nuestro más provechoso sacramento…

Llega la comadre de la grosella,

el trasgo del desbarajuste.

Llega un amuleto negro, cocido, con lazo

y todo, en la tarta virgen.

Llega el aborigen a las sedas y a

los paños menores humeantes de sudor.

Llega con la moneda hallada.

Llega un diablillo moldeando ampollas

en el pie de la suerte.

Llega la mujer del pescador con su berrinche y el silencio

deforme, el déspota Plantagenet malgastando su reino.

Llega el ulceroso

y peligroso en persona.

Llega extrañamente engatusado, humilde

ideal descorchado.

Llega el cubo boca abajo, trofeo

de cromo escondiendo su galaxia de agujeros.

Llega ambivalente como la sábana

que cuelgas chapucera,

el glifo rampante

anunciando nuestra sangrienta nueva (2).

de black box (Copper Canyon Press, 2006)

Epithalamion (1)

the creature of our most commodious sacrament…

Comes gooseberry yenta,

goblin of misalignment.

Comes a black charm, baked, ribbon

and all, into the virgin cake.

Comes aboriginal into the silks and

sweat-fumed underthings.

Comes penny-headed.

Comes a fiend waxing blisters

into the lucky food.

Comes fishwife of tantrum and crooked 

silence, Plantagenet despot wasting his reign.

Comes ulcerous

and dangerous in person.

Comes strangely beguiled, humble

uncorked ideal.

Comes the upended bucket, chrome

trophy hiding its galaxy of holes.

Comes ambivalent as the sheet

you hang botched,

the glyph rampant

heralding our bloody news.

   (1) Título claramente alusivo a los poemas nupciales del poeta isabelino Edmund Spenser.

     (2) En el inglés original, sangriento (bloody) se refiere tanto a la arcaica costumbre de exhibir las sábanas manchadas tras la noche de bodas, como a la acepción coloquial del término (como en la expresión bloody hell), que en español es imposible de reproducir. [N. de la T.]

Against Writing about Children

When I think of the many people

who privately despise children,

I can't say I'm completely shocked,

having been one. I was not

exceptional, uncomfortable as that is

to admit, and most children are not

exceptional. The particulars of 

cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large, 

memory gnawing it like

a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss

Smigelsky from the sixth grade;

the orthodontist who 

slapped you for crying out. Children

frighten us, other people's and 

our own. They reflect

the virused figures in which failure

began. We feel accosted by their

vulnerable natures. Each child turns

into a problematic ocean, a mirrored

body growing denser and more

difficult to navigate until

sunlight merely bounces

off the surface. They become impossible

to sound. Like us, but even weaker. 

Legend of the Albino Farm

Omaha, Nebraska They do not sleep nights

but stand between

rows of glowing corn and

cabbages grown on acres past

the edge of the city.

Surrendered flags,

their nightgowns furl and

unfurl around their legs.

Only women could be this

white. Like mules,

they are sterile

and it appears that

their mouths are always

open. Because they are thin

as weeds, the albinos

look hungry. If you drive out

to the farm, tree branches will

point the way. No map will show

where, no phone is listed.

It will seem that the moon, plump

above their shoulders, is constant,

orange as harvest all year

long. We say, when a mother

gives birth to an albino girl,

she feigns sleep after

labor while an Asian

man steals in, spirits

the pale baby away. 

For Catherine: Juana, Infanta of Navarre

Ferdinand was systematic when

he drove his daughter mad.

With a Casanova's careful art,

he moved slowly,

stole only one child at a time

through tunnels specially dug

behind the walls of her royal

chamber, then paid the Duenna

well to remember nothing

but his appreciation.

Imagine how quietly

the servants must have worked,

loosening the dirt, the muffled

ring of pick-ends against

the castle stone. The Duenna,

one eye gauging the drugged girl's

sleep, each night handing over

another light parcel, another

small body vanished

through the mouth of a hole.

Once you were a daughter, too,

then a wife and now the mother

of a baby with a Spanish name.

Paloma, you call her, little dove;

she sleeps in a room beyond you.

Your husband, too, works late,

drinks too much at night, comes

home lit, wanting sex and dinner.

You feign sleep, shrunk

in the corner of the queen-sized bed.

You've confessed, you can't feel things

when they touch you;

take Prozac for depression, Ativan

for the buzz. Drunk, you call your father

who doesn't want to claim

a ha!fsand-niggergrandkid.

He says he never loved your mother.

No one remembers Juana; almost

everything's forgotten in time,

and if I tell her story,

it's only when guessing

what she loved, what she dreamed

about, the lost details of a life

that barely survives history.

God and Latin, I suppose, what she loved.

And dreams of mice pouring out

from a hole. The Duenna, in spite

of her black, widow's veil, leaning

to kiss her, saying Juana, don't listen...