Gerald Stern
(1925, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Estados Unidos de Norteamérica)
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
POESÍA
The Naming of Beasts, Cummington Press (Omaha, NE), 1972.
Rejoicings: Selected Poems 1966-72, Fiddlehead Poetry Books (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada), 1973.
Lucky Life, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1977.
The Red Coal, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1981.
Paradise Poems, Random House (New York, NY), 1984.
Lovesick, Perennial Library (New York, NY), 1987.
New and Selected Poems, Harper, (New York, NY), 1989.
Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems, Harper (New York, NY), 1990.
Bread without Sugar: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 1992.
Odd Mercy: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 1995.
This Time: New and Selected Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 1998.
Last Blue: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 2000.
American Sonnets: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 2002.
Not God after All, drawings by Sheba Sha, Autumn House Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 2004.
Everything Is Burning: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 2005.
Save the Last Dance: Poems, Norton (New York, NY), 2008.
Early Collected Poems: 1965–1992, Norton (New York, NY), 2010.
ESSAYS
Selected Essays, Harper, (New York, NY), 1988.
What I Can't Bear Losing: Notes from a Life (essays), Norton (New York, NY), 2004.
What I Can’t Bear Losing, Trinity University Press (San Antonio, TX), 2009.
Also author of "Father Guzman," a long poem published in Paris Review, spring, 1982. Contributor to anthologies; contributor to poetry journals and popular magazines, including New Yorker, Nation, Paris Review, Poetry Now, American Poetry Review, and Poetry.
Traducciones de: José de María Romero Barea
El mordisco
No empecé a tomarme en serio como poeta
hasta que el pelo blanco empezó a asomar en la barbilla.
Antes todo era diversión y afecto;
ahora, como una liebre, una liebre, una liebre
veo a la tortuga alzar su horrenda pata
sobre el último escalón por subir antes de
volver a casa, henchida de ventaja.
De pronto, todo parece venir de arriba, de la mente,
la belleza de la carrera ha desaparecido.
y mi vida es apenas una alegoría.
La fuerza de los arces
Si quieres vivir en el campo tienes que entender la fuerza de los arces.
Tienes que verlos hundir sus dientes en las raíces de las viejas acacias.
Tienes que verlos ahogan a los sicomoros hasta dejarlos sin aliento.
Tienes que verlos llevar su gruesa cabellera hasta el sótano.
Y cuando cortes tu fabulosa vara verde para pescar
tienes que estar listo para verla brotar entre tus manos;
tienes que clavarla en la tierra como un trozo de sauce;
tienes que plantar tu mesa bajo sus hojas y empezar a comer.
Recuerdo a Galileo
Recuerdo a Galileo describir la mente
como un trozo de papel que el viento arrastra,
y me encantó la imagen de este pegándose a un árbol
o saltando al asiento trasero de un coche,
y durante años he visto papeles volar a través de mis ciudades;
pero ayer vi que la mente era una ardilla atrapada al cruzar
la Ruta 80 entre las ruedas de un camión gigante,
bailando de un lado a otro como una delgada hoja,
o un hilo asustado, apenas dos segundos de vida
sobre el hormigón blanco antes de escapar,
la vida acortada por todo aquel terror, su cabeza
que tiembla, los dientes amarillos pulverizados.
Fue la velocidad de la ardilla y su cercanía al suelo,
su enorme resolución y la agilidad de su danza
lo que me enseñó la diferencia entre ella y el papel.
El papel será útil en teoría, cuando haya tiempo
de sentarse en una silla de metal a estudiar sombras;
pero para esta vida yo necesito una ardilla,
sus patas acabadas en garras extendidas, su alma trémula,
el viento cálido que corre por su pelo,
el fuerte ruido que la hace temblar de la cabeza a la cola.
Oh mente filosófica, oh mente de papel, necesito una ardilla
que con su salvaje carrera consiga cruzar la autopista,
que suba a toda prisa la verde ladera desgobernada.
St. Mark's
Aún como niño, ¿no?
Trepar por una escalera de hierro,
discutir con algún Igor
sobre la cerradura rota,
dejar que la cabeza cuelgue sobre el fregadero,
enjuagar el cuello con agua fría.
Como un lobo, ¿no fue así?
o una paloma que nunca morirá.
Leer a Propercio, pisotear
las estrellas más altas,
obligar a mis manos a unirse,
tocar la fila de cubos de basura cubiertos de nieve.
Con el lomo hundido, ¿no fue así?
Arrastrar mis pies mojados
de un parque a otro.
"Atenuado por el salpicar consumado del tiempo",
¿no?
Tulipán de la selva rosa.
Rojo y amarillo tulipán henchido y lavado por la lluvia.
Lavanda
A Karl Stirner
Sólo por experimentar estoy quemando la lavanda
y olfateando el aire porque si sólo la desmenuzara
el aroma, aunque embriagador, no llegaría
más allá de treinta o cuarenta centímetros y es más los
tallos apenas soltarían olor mientras que las
llamas hacen que todo aflore aun cuando
acaban con los demás aromas, en este caso a menta y
a las penurias arqueadas bajo tu ventanal francés donde
yo voy de un lado a otro llorando por la culpa del humo
y gimiendo por la bolsita de aroma que nunca tuve
y por la caja llena de seda, por ser yo tan enemigo.
Apocalypse
Of all sixty of us I am the only one who went
to the four corners though I don't say it
out of pride but more like a type of regret,
and I did it because there was no one I truly believed
in though once when I climbed the hill in Skye
and arrived at the rough tables I saw the only other
elder who was a vegetarian--in Scotland--
and visited Orwell and rode a small motorcycle
to get from place to place; and I immediately
stopped eating fish and meat and lived on soups;
and we wrote each other in the middle and late fifties
though one day I got a letter from his daughter
that he had died in an accident; he was
I'm sure of it, an angel who flew in midair
with one eternal gospel to proclaim
to those inhabiting the earth and every nation;
and now that I go through my papers every day
I search and search for his letters but to my shame
I have even forgotten his name, that messenger
who came to me with tablespoons of blue lentils.
Swan Song
A bunch of old snakeheads down by the pond
carrying on the swan tradition -- hissing
inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads
like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual
that forced them to waddle back into the water
after their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again
in the sun
and dream of spreading their terrifying wings;
wishing, this time, they could sail through the sky like
horses,
their tails rigid, their white manes fluttering,
their mouths open, their sharp teeth flashing,
drops of mercy pouring from their eyes,
bolts of wisdom from their foreheads.
The Dancing
In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture
and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots
I have never seen a post-war Philco
with the automatic eye
nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did
in 1945 in that tiny living room
on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did
then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,
my mother red with laughter, my father cupping
his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance
of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,
half fart, the world at last a meadow,
the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us
screaming and falling, as if we were dying,
as if we could never stop--in 1945--
in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home
of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away
from the other dancing--in Poland and Germany--
oh God of mercy, oh wild God.
Behaving Like a Jew
When I got there the dead opossum looked like
an enormous baby sleeping on the road.
It took me only a few seconds—just
seeing him there—with the hole in his back
and the wind blowing through his hair
to get back again into my animal sorrow.
I am sick of the country, the bloodstained
bumpers, the stiff hairs sticking out of the grilles,
the slimy highways, the heavy birds
refusing to move;
I am sick of the spirit of Lindbergh over everything,
that joy in death, that philosophical
understanding of carnage, that
concentration on the species.
—I am going to be unappeased at the opossum’s death.
I am going to behave like a Jew
and touch his face, and stare into his eyes,
and pull him off the road.
I am not going to stand in a wet ditch
with the Toyotas and the Chevies passing over me
at sixty miles an hour
and praise the beauty and the balance
and lose myself in the immortal lifestream
when my hands are still a little shaky
from his stiffness and his bulk
and my eyes are still weak and misty
from his round belly and his curved fingers
and his black whiskers and his little dancing feet.
Originally published in Lucky Life (1977)
Underground Dancing
There’s a bird pecking at the fat;
there’s a dead tree covered with snow;
there’s a truck dropping cinders on the slippery highway.
There’s life in my backyard—
black wings beating on the branches,
greedy eyes watching,
mouths screaming and fighting over the greasy ball.
There’s a mole singing hallelujah.
Close the rotten doors!
Let everyone go blind!
Let everyone be buried in his own litter.
Originally published in Lucky Life (1977)
I Remember Galileo
I remember Galileo describing the mind
as a piece of paper blown around by the wind,
and I loved the sight of it sticking to a tree
or jumping into the back seat of a car,
and for years I watched paper leap through my cities;
but yesterday I saw the mind was a squirrel caught crossing
Route 80 between the wheels of a giant truck,
dancing back and forth like a thin leaf,
or a frightened string, for only two seconds living
on the white concrete before he got away,
his life shortened by all that terror, his head
jerking, his yellow teeth ground down to dust.
It was the speed of the squirrel and his lowness to the ground,
his great purpose and the alertness of his dancing,
that showed me the difference between him and paper.
Paper will do in theory, when there is time
to sit back in a metal chair and study shadows;
but for this life I need a squirrel,
his clawed feet spread, his whole soul quivering,
the hot wind rushing through his hair,
the loud noise shaking him from head to tail.
O philosophical mind, O mind of paper, I need a squirrel
finishing his wild dash across the highway,
rushing up his green ungoverned hillside.
Originally published in The Red Coal (1981)
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