Sandra McPherson
Sandra McPherson (nacida el 02 de agosto 1943) es una poeta norteamericana.
Nació en San José, California, McPherson recibió su BA en la Universidad Estatal de San José, y estudió en la Universidad de Washington, con Elizabeth Bishop y David Wagoner.
Ha impartido clases en el Taller de Escritores de Iowa, el R. Festival de Poesía de Dodge Geraldine, y el arte de la Conferencia Wild.
Es Profesora Emérita en la Universidad de California en Davis.
Obras
A Pumpkin at New Year’s , Poetry online
Black Soap , Poetry (February 1980)
Eschatology , Poetry (April 1970)
For Elizabeth Bishop , Poetry online
Grouse , Poetry (March 2006)
Lions , Poetry online
Peddler , Poetry online
Resigning from a Job in a Defense Industry , Poetry online
Seaweeds , Poetry (November 1972)
The Delicacy , Poetry online
Triolet , Poetry (July 1973)
Pisces Child , Poetry365
Libros
A Vigil, 2 am, County Jail , Ploughshares (Spring 1999)
In Her Image , Ploughshares (Spring 1999)
Ridge Road , Ploughshares (Winter 1987)
Sonnet for a Singer , Ploughshares (Winter 1987)
Elegies for the Hot Season , Indiana University Press (Bloomington), 1970
Radiation , Ecco Press (New York City), 1973.
The Year of Our Birth , Ecco Press, 1978.
Sensing , Meadow Press (San Francisco), 1980.
Patron Happiness , Ecco Press, 1983.
Pheasant Flower , Owl Creek Press (Missoula, MT), 1985.
Floralia , illustrations by Claire Van Vliet, Janus Press (Portland, OR), 1985.
Responsibility for Blue , Trilobite Press (Denton, TX), 1985.
At the Grave of Hazel Hall , Ives Street Press (Sweden, ME), 1988.
Streamers , Ecco Press, 1988.
Designating Duet , Janus Press (West Burke, VT), 1989.
The God of Indeterminacy , University of Illinois Press, 1993.
Edge Effect: Trails and Portrayals , University Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 1996.
The Spaces between Birds: Mother/Daughter Poems , 1967–1995, University Press of New England, 1996.
Beauty in Use , Janus Press, 1997.
"A Visit to Civilization", Wesleyan, 2002.
"Handmade Definition of Obscurity", Janus, 2005 (a broadside).
"Expectation Days", Illinois, 2007.
"Certain Uncollected Poems", Ostrakon, 2012.
Editor
Journey from Essex: Poems for John Clare , Graywolf Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1981.
The Pushcart Prize XIV: Best of the Small Presses, 1989-90 , (with Bill Henderson and Laura Jensen), Pushcart Press (Wainscott, NY), 1989.
"Swan Scythe Press", (Davis, CA), founder and editor, 1999-2011.
Honores
Ingram Merrill Foundation grants
National Endowment of the Arts fellowships
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award
Banderolas
Las mujeres que se van me dicen que están contentas.
Pero mi amiga, arrodillada conmigo, es la única
que aún sigue viviendo sola,
y tiene cinco casas,
una en tierra inclinada hacia un «brazo de mar»,
índigo y plata, joven salmón nervioso
que ataca bancos de anchoas.
El mar que oscila, esta mañana de agosto,
nadador asombroso
desde el pulgar del puerto, recostado en gorgonias
afelpadas, expulsando
despacio en sus corrientes
la red de tentáculos.
Hemos caído hasta los codos.
Recuerdo inviernos aquí,
escarcha en el muelle,
tanta como pudieras segar;
un barco exhausto,
el Barbarroja,
achicando sentinas de agua,
día entero, oscuro entero,
agua que lo hizo
hundirse adentro,
afuera la luz flotando.
Podías rozar su amarra
y acercar el gran navío.
Y esta cyanea es tan grande
como nuestras hijas,
tan larga como el viejo velo nupcial de mi amiga
(yo llevo bufanda)
pereciendo bajo lanas en el baúl de un barco
durante un viaje de buhardilla.
El resto del conjunto, importación
de España: volantes en escalas, corpiño floreado
y bolero, casi todo
de un tono salmón-sandía-gamba
o melocotón-jengibre; labios
y gónadas hundidos en una falda
festoneada en ocho engarces,
equilibrada por ropalio cristalino.
Así es la moda.
«Las mujeres rara vez
me han atraído»,
dijo Sherlock Holmes en «La melena de león»,
«pues mi cerebro gobernó siempre mi alma -
pero cuando contemplé
la fina perfección de su rostro,
con la frescura suave de los acantilados
en su delicado colorido,
comprendí que ningún joven
podrá encontrarla sin ser lacerado».
Ah, amigo,
no sólo debemos lacerar,
también conocer los remedios:
Amoniaco, vinagre o sazonador,
zumo de papaya, gasolina, aceite,
agua de mar (pero no fría).
Aparta los tentáculos usando un guante,
aplica harina, levadura,
jabón de baño.
Ven al mar con esto.
Después raspa.
Y aun así su clara cabeza
de Orrefors inmaculados…
Dilatación, contracción.
¿Recuerdas aún el día
de nuestras depresiones iguales?
Mi esposo llamaba una y otra vez,
te escuchaba y luego a mí,
incapaz de sincronizar nuestras llamadas.
Nos describió una a la otra.
Después fuimos de pesca.
Navegó entre las melenas de león,
repelido, maldecido
–no puedes tocarlas, ni arrancarles
un solo hilo–
y llevó a otro lugar su bote,
hacia otras bestias,
focas, frailecillos, mielgas
alejándose a mordiscos de la caza,
pericia, éxito y hambre.
Tú yo y estábamos juntas a cierta profundidad,
a millas de allí, eso dijo,
sirvió de algo.
Ahora, quizá, hemos comenzado la migración
(si estuviera aquí nuestro tercer amigo,
y el cuarto…)
La mujer del Centro de Ciencias Marinas recibe
a estas medusas en el calor de cada agosto,
extiende sus brazos para explicar
qué grandes son las que ha visto.
Por ahora brazos y rodillas no aguantan
la congelación,
sino esta centrada calma,
una concentración en el pulso
que no es piedra
ni vuelve piedra a nadie
que se pare a contemplarla.
Y ella se recuesta, saludando, ante su puerta,
a cada corriente, esas banderolas, esos huevos
fatigados y tóxicos, pero estriados,
fruncidos, pastoreados sin brazos,
como transparentes panecillos de viernes santo.
Nuestro cabello pende sobre el puerto,
sus tentáculos, ocho-cientos, nove-cientos,
sacándonos de la roca,
relajándose, flexionándose.
Ella no paraliza,
no tiene partes duras
y está completamente sola.
Traducción de Fruela Fernández
Driving in Circles with the Blind
I have enough retablos of visions, ex-votos of rescues,
for a shrine in a corner of my home
to pray for release from the mind's mad portraitist--
Wendy's sick green angel of the asylum,
William's fisherman curled up
in his own tackle box, Alice's hunched figure outlined
with scraping fingernail through blue gouache.
I've seen how lunacy spells people, hello
in a möbius monologue, a post-tribulationist
vaudeville act of God. One night when I was about
to furl into sleep and fathom some new low
dream of fear (blind cave cricket dream
would do it), not knowing whether by morning
jangles would be re-wound, or backbone built,
I heard a knock at the door, I rose from bed,
and hesitated until the rap said who it was,
then I unlocked all brass latches to the night
and my own flesh and blood.
A long white limousine blinded the street.
But who does she know who owns anything?
They pooled and rented it because
I was the mother her friends wanted to meet.
The door to it stood wide and, inside,
two strange faces phosphoresced--
from some cold arson of the mind?
Even though they could not see me,
they implored me to ride with them.
I left home barefoot, bowed into the limousine.
The driver began to move us swiftly over the ground.
One rider's name was Ronnie. He called the young woman ÕÓOs.
Os is not her real name. Os is her simple name,
oneness, oddness, own-ness.
Os is her owl name, her night name.
She desires O0000OOOO
small circles. Can she feel this large one,
this tire-tread round of miles we begin?
She has a circular face
and pretty, dark corkscrews of curls.
She craves circles drawn in the foundling-skin
palm of her hand--a wispy, sprouted wand
pruned for use in pagan ceremony. She rubs
the round bevel of the watch crystal on my wrist.
A hoop, a loop, a noose, they're all her thing.
Then she slides forward, drops to her knees
in front of me, her arms encircle my waist,
she calls it Mother, she names it Sis.
Ronnie, everyone knows, will speechify
full speed, filibuster all he understands
is missing. Neither he nor Os
can walk. Anymore. They both love wheels
and feel them fasten on like flesh.
They want to take their wheelchairs to
Hawaii and my daughter to fix them.
But we are just circling a dark school,
Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High,
owl-calls over its empty track, the invisible
percussion of its tennis courts, its uncheering
football fields. We are driving around the dark
estate of public knowledge.
In our mobile asylum
one echolalic delights another, lingers
in the shell of mimic music,
appeals to me to impersonate them both.
The more we say what each other says,
the more we vow we're different.
But aren't we all--or aren't they, at least--
God's creatures? God's creatures know
the OOOÖÖOOOOõõõOOOO00000ÔÔÔÔÒ&Ograv e;ÒÒÒOOõõ&otil de;õ
OOOOØØØ&Oslas h;ØOOOO
OOOOOOOOÕÕooo oooooooo
000000000000000000000
oooo°&de g;°°°°°°OOOOO
OOOO&ogr ave;òòòòò&ogra ve;øø°/oo°/oo°/oo°/ oo°/oo°/oo°/oo
oo, all the Os that open up the night sky
(in or out of the mind)
and pattern it with awe.
So far I can ask the coachman
to slow to a stop, if I choose; I can open the door
to re-enter the world solid as a consonant.
But God's creatures put their spin
on it. And life by life
God's brood is lifted out where each one rents,
the point on the arc, the warp on the bend.
May each have an oasis. A moat. A moon phasing in.
A mother in mind. Release.
May each have a prayer, even if on waking
they go out to touch their dream's circumference
and find it too mean but at least real,
a wheelbarrow, a roller skate, a shopping cart,
a one-speed bike, on the sidewalk, at the curb,
ready to go forward, idling, a little way. . .
I have enough retablos of visions, ex-votos of rescues,
for a shrine in a corner of my home
to pray for release from the mind's mad portraitist--
Wendy's sick green angel of the asylum,
William's fisherman curled up
in his own tackle box, Alice's hunched figure outlined
with scraping fingernail through blue gouache.
I've seen how lunacy spells people, hello
in a möbius monologue, a post-tribulationist
vaudeville act of God. One night when I was about
to furl into sleep and fathom some new low
dream of fear (blind cave cricket dream
would do it), not knowing whether by morning
jangles would be re-wound, or backbone built,
I heard a knock at the door, I rose from bed,
and hesitated until the rap said who it was,
then I unlocked all brass latches to the night
and my own flesh and blood.
A long white limousine blinded the street.
But who does she know who owns anything?
They pooled and rented it because
I was the mother her friends wanted to meet.
The door to it stood wide and, inside,
two strange faces phosphoresced--
from some cold arson of the mind?
Even though they could not see me,
they implored me to ride with them.
I left home barefoot, bowed into the limousine.
The driver began to move us swiftly over the ground.
One rider's name was Ronnie. He called the young woman ÕÓOs.
Os is not her real name. Os is her simple name,
oneness, oddness, own-ness.
Os is her owl name, her night name.
She desires O0000OOOO
small circles. Can she feel this large one,
this tire-tread round of miles we begin?
She has a circular face
and pretty, dark corkscrews of curls.
She craves circles drawn in the foundling-skin
palm of her hand--a wispy, sprouted wand
pruned for use in pagan ceremony. She rubs
the round bevel of the watch crystal on my wrist.
A hoop, a loop, a noose, they're all her thing.
Then she slides forward, drops to her knees
in front of me, her arms encircle my waist,
she calls it Mother, she names it Sis.
Ronnie, everyone knows, will speechify
full speed, filibuster all he understands
is missing. Neither he nor Os
can walk. Anymore. They both love wheels
and feel them fasten on like flesh.
They want to take their wheelchairs to
Hawaii and my daughter to fix them.
But we are just circling a dark school,
Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High,
owl-calls over its empty track, the invisible
percussion of its tennis courts, its uncheering
football fields. We are driving around the dark
estate of public knowledge.
In our mobile asylum
one echolalic delights another, lingers
in the shell of mimic music,
appeals to me to impersonate them both.
The more we say what each other says,
the more we vow we're different.
But aren't we all--or aren't they, at least--
God's creatures? God's creatures know
the OOOÖÖOOOOõõõOOOO00000ÔÔÔÔÒ&Ograv e;ÒÒÒOOõõ&otil de;õ
OOOOØØØ&Oslas h;ØOOOO
OOOOOOOOÕÕooo oooooooo
000000000000000000000
oooo°&de g;°°°°°°OOOOO
OOOO&ogr ave;òòòòò&ogra ve;øø°/oo°/oo°/oo°/ oo°/oo°/oo°/oo
oo, all the Os that open up the night sky
(in or out of the mind)
and pattern it with awe.
So far I can ask the coachman
to slow to a stop, if I choose; I can open the door
to re-enter the world solid as a consonant.
But God's creatures put their spin
on it. And life by life
God's brood is lifted out where each one rents,
the point on the arc, the warp on the bend.
May each have an oasis. A moat. A moon phasing in.
A mother in mind. Release.
May each have a prayer, even if on waking
they go out to touch their dream's circumference
and find it too mean but at least real,
a wheelbarrow, a roller skate, a shopping cart,
a one-speed bike, on the sidewalk, at the curb,
ready to go forward, idling, a little way. . .
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