LOUIS SIMPSON [12.560]

Louis Simpson

Louis Aston Marantz Simpson (27 de marzo de 1923 - 14 de septiembre de 2012) fue un poeta estadounidense. Ganó el Premio Pulitzer de Poesía en 1964 por su trabajo en The End Of The Open Road.

Obras selectas

Poesía

The Arrivistes: Poems, 1940-1949. Fine Editions Press. 1949.

Good News of Death. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1955 (in Poets of Today, Vol. 2).

A Dream of Governors: Poems. Wesleyan University Press. 1959.

At the End of the Open Road, Poems. Wesleyan University Press. 1963. ISBN 978-0-8195-2020-3.

Selected Poems. Harcourt, Brace & World. 1965.

Adventures of the Letter I. Harper & Row. 1971.

Searching for the Ox. Oxford University Press. 1976. ISBN 978-0-19-211860-8.

Armidale. The Book Bus. 1979.

Caviare at the Funeral. F. Watts. 1980. ISBN 978-0-531-09937-7.

The Best Hour of the Night. Ticknor & Fields. 1983. ISBN 978-0-89919-203-1.

People Live Here: Selected Poems 1949–83. BOA Editions. 1983. ISBN 978-0-918526-43-4.

Collected Poems. Paragon House. 1988. ISBN 978-1-55778-047-8.

In the Room We Share. Paragon House. 1990. ISBN 978-1-55778-261-8.

There You Are: Poems. Story Line Press. 1995. ISBN 978-1-885266-15-6.

The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems, 1940–2001. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2003. ISBN 978-1-929918-39-3.

Struggling Times. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2009. 

Voices in the Distance: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books. 2010. ISBN 978-1-85224-861-1.

Traducciones

Louis Aston Marantz, ed. (1997). Modern Poets of France: a bilingual anthology. Story Line Press. ISBN 978-1-885266-44-6.

No ficción

James Hogg: A Critical study. St. Martin's Press. 1962.

Louis Aston Marantz Simpson, ed. (1968). An Introduction to Poetry. Macmillan.

Air with Armed Men. London Magazine Editions. 1972 (US title: North of Jamaica).

Three on the Tower. Morrow. 1975. ISBN 978-0-688-02899-2.

A Revolution in Taste: Studies of Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell. MacMillan. 1978. ISBN 978-0-02-611320-5.

A Company of Poets. University of Michigan Press. 1981. ISBN 978-0-472-06326-0.

The Character of the Poet. University of Michigan Press. 1986. ISBN 978-0-472-09369-4.

Selected Prose. Paragon House. 1989. ISBN 978-1-55778-048-5.

Ships Going Into the Blue: Essays and Notes on Poetry. University of Michigan Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-472-09559-9.

The King My Father's Wreck. Story Line Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-934257-09-1.

Louis Simpson, galardonado con el Pulitzer de poesía en 1964, habló crudamente de la batalla. Formó parte de la mítica 101ª División Aerotransportada estadounidense, la misma a la que pertenecía la Compañía Easy. En los poemas de Simpson existe la crueldad, el dolor, el cansancio y la muerte. Y una descripción exhaustiva del combate donde prima el pesimismo por encima de la heroicidad: 

Octubre, y el cielo se volvió gris. 

La línea de la batalla se estableció. Todas las noches  

los bombarderos volaron rumbo a Alemania 

a gran altura. Y, desde el otro lado, 

las V-1 llegaron. Los soldados en sus agujeros 

escucharon su zumbido y vieron las llamas rítmicas 

que transportaban la aflicción desde Amberes hasta Inglaterra. 

Ellos dormitaban o vigilaban. Entonces comenzó a llover, 

y siempre llovía. Parecía que nunca fueran a secarse…

La Batalla

Casco y rifle, mochila y capote

Marchando por el bosque. En algún lugar adelante

Los cañones retumban. Como el círculo de una garganta

La noche a cada costado se hace roja.

Se detienen y cavan. Se hunden como topos

En la viscosa tierra entre los árboles

Y pronto los centinelas alertas en sus huecos

Sienten la primera nieve. Sus pies se comienzan a helar.

Al amanecer la primera granada cae con un estallido,

Luego granadas y balas cruzan las heladas maderas.

Esto duró muchos días, la nieve estaba negra,

Los cadáveres hedían en sus huecos escarlata.

Lo que más claramente recuerdo de esta batalla:

El cansancio de los ojos, como las manos parecían delgadas

En torno a un cigarrillo y la brillante ascua

Vacilaría con toda la vida que en ella hay.

dice de la poesía norteamericana que 

"Sea lo que sea, ha de tener

Estómago para digerir

Hule, carbón, uranio, lunas, poemas.

Como el tiburón, lleva adentro un zapato.

Tiene que nadar millas a través del desierto

Dando gritos que son casi humanos." 

(Traducción Alberto Blanco) 

LOS ABEDULES DE LOUIS SIMPSON 

(en The New Pocket Anthology of American 

Verse, ed. By Oscar Williams, Pocket Books,

New York, 1977, p. 415).

ABEDUL

ÁRBOL del abedul, tú me recuerdas

aquella habitación llena de aliento,

de vibrante murmullo del amor.

Ella se desenlaza los zapatos

desata la falda, y alza los brazos.

Desabrocha un zarcillo, luego el otro.

De igual manera tu pálido tronco

se abre, se despliega, y son sus ramas

tan limpias, tan serenas, tan suaves.

(Traduc. J. Choza y M.C. Iribarren)

BIRCH

BIRCH tree, you remind me 

Of a room filled with breathing,

The sway and whisper of love.

She slips off her shoes;

Unzips her skirt; arms raised,

Unclasps an earring, and the other.

Just so the sallow trunk

Divides, and the branches

Are pale and smooth.

Working Late

A light is on in my father's study.

"Still up?" he says, and we are silent,

looking at the harbor lights,

listening to the surf

and the creak of coconut boughs.

He is working late on cases.

No impassioned speech! He argues from evidence,

actually pacing out and measuring,

while the fans revolving on the ceiling

winnow the true from the false.

Once he passed a brass curtain rod

through a head made out of plaster

and showed the jury the angle of fire--

where the murderer must have stood.

For years, all through my childhood,

if I opened a closet . . . bang!

There would be the dead man's head

with a black hole in the forehead.

All the arguing in the world

will not stay the moon.

She has come all the way from Russia

to gaze for a while in a mango tree

and light the wall of a veranda,

before resuming her interrupted journey

beyond the harbor and the lighthouse

at Port Royal, turning away

from land to the open sea.

Yet, nothing in nature changes, from that day to this,

she is still the mother of us all.

I can see the drifting offshore lights,

black posts where the pelicans brood.

And the light that used to shine

at night in my father's study

now shines as late in mine. 

Honeymoon

Uncle Bob prayed over the groom:

"Let him establish Kingdom principles."

Aunt Shirley prayed for the bride:

"Father, I pray an anointing on her."

"Love," said Reverend Philips,

"is insensitive, love is invalueless."

He said that we merger together

in holy matrimony,

and the choir burst into song:

"He waits for us, and waits for us." 

Carentan O Carentan

Trees in the old days used to stand

And shape a shady lane

Where lovers wandered hand in hand

Who came from Carentan.

This was the shining green canal

Where we came two by two

Walking at combat-interval.

Such trees we never knew.

The day was early June, the ground

Was soft and bright with dew.

Far away the guns did sound,

But here the sky was blue.

The sky was blue, but there a smoke

Hung still above the sea

Where the ships together spoke

To towns we could not see.

Could you have seen us through a glass

You would have said a walk

Of farmers out to turn the grass,

Each with his own hay-fork.

The watchers in their leopard suits

Waited till it was time,

And aimed between the belt and boot

And let the barrel climb.

I must lie down at once, there is

A hammer at my knee.

And call it death or cowardice,

Don't count again on me.

Everything's all right, Mother,

Everyone gets the same

At one time or another.

It's all in the game.

I never strolled, nor ever shall,

Down such a leafy lane.

I never drank in a canal,

Nor ever shall again.

There is a whistling in the leaves

And it is not the wind,

The twigs are falling from the knives

That cut men to the ground.

Tell me, Master-Sergeant,

The way to turn and shoot.

But the Sergeant's silent

That taught me how to do it.

O Captain, show us quickly

Our place upon the map.

But the Captain's sickly

And taking a long nap.

Lieutenant, what's my duty,

My place in the platoon?

He too's a sleeping beauty,

Charmed by that strange tune.

Carentan O Carentan

Before we met with you

We never yet had lost a man

Or known what death could do.