ANTIGONE KEFALA [12.234] Poeta de Australia

Antigone Kefala 

Nació en 1935 en Braila, Rumania, de padres griegos. Después de la guerra su familia regresó a Grecia, antes de emigrar a Nueva Zelanda en 1951. Se graduó con una licenciatura en Artes de la Universidad de Victoria, Wellington, y, posteriormente, completó una maestría en 1960. A principios de 1960 se mudó a Nueva Gales del Sur, trabajando primero como profesora de Inglés como segunda lengua, y, posteriormente, como administradora de la Universidad de Nueva Gales del Sur, y como administradora de artes  del Consejo de Australia.

Kefala comenzó a publicar su poesía en revistas literarias de Australia a principios de 1960, y su primer libro The Alien, apareció en 1973. Su poesía a menudo gira en torno a la experiencia de la alienación y la diferencia, y los problemas del lenguaje y significado, ha sido ampliamente reconocida como una voz importante en la experiencia de los inmigrantes en la Australia moderna. Además de poesía, ha escrito historias cortas de ficción, novelas cortas y novelas - incluyendo The Island (1984) -, así como ensayos y obras autobiográficas, que incluyen una selección de sus diarios: Sydney Journals, 1970-2000 (2008).

Poesía Colecciones

The Alien (St Lucia, Qld: Makar Press, 1973).

Thirsty Weather (Melbourne: Outback Press, 1978).

European Notebook (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1988).

Absence: New and Selected Poems (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1992).

Poems (Melbourne: Owl Publishing, 2000).

El regreso

Él apareció en el balcón

después de la victoria,

con su nueva esposa, joven y rubia.

Él alto y muy delgado, en gris,

su cabeza, una calavera apenas cubierta

por algunas parchaduras.

Él miraba la multitud,

inestable sobre sus pies y vago,

enviándoles torpes besos

con su huesuda mano, la mano de su mujer

sobre su hombro, guiándolo.

Cuando habló su voz aullaba, raspando

una sobreusada retórica de su pasado

en la cual todavía creía.

Coming Home

What if

getting out of the bus

in these abandoned suburbs

pale under the street lights,

what if, as we stepped down

we forgot who we are

became lost in this absence

emptied of memory

we, the only witness of ourselves

before whom

shall the drama be enacted?

The Place

I

The place was small, full of hills,

palm trees, almond trees, oleanders,

glass flowers falling from the sky

on the ascetic hills, the bare houses.

The ancients had been there looking for copper.

Around the courtyards in the dusk

grey men in army coats

followed the leader round the ramparts.

At night after the toll, the three

would come dressed up to count the souls.

We waited there two summers.

Tall birds with upturned beaks

picked us like grain.

We moved in herds

waited with patience to be fed

drank at the water places

between the walls our necks grew longer

stretching for the night.

II

The ships, we heard, had sunk

weighed with the charity of the new world

that kept on feeding us with toys,

letters in foreign tongues

that we could not decipher.

We gave them to our silent children, onyx-eyed,

brought up on wakes for spirits that had gone

and knew each drop that added the ingredients

to the day in the appointed measure.

For them, we looked at the cross roads

to find only the sound of running water

and the dusk settling in plum coloured

over the hills

the coolness of the evening full of promise.

III

They came in spring with the great winds

the buyers

walked through the gates in groups

their marrow discoloured

their eyes ashes

gestures full of charity.

Bidders, in markets for flesh

untouched by the taste of the coffee

and the scent of the water

on the hot stones.

IV

We travelled in old ships

with small decaying hearts

rode on the giant beast

uncertain

remembered other voyages

and the black depths

each day we feasted on the past

friends watching over

the furniture of generations

dolphins no longer followed us

we were in alien waters.

Family

The garden full of trees in bloom

spring scents, angelica, birds

crying in the still, clean light.

In the dark house behind the shutters

they were waiting

with the bread and the olives.

Marble dusted, ancient faces

with eroded eyes,

shell eyes of statues bleached by time.

At night, their shadows

on the white washed walls

breathing in silence

the scent of the white lilies

blooming in the moonlight

as if consumed with longing.