Tarfia Faizulá
Poeta estadounidense-Bangladesh
Tarfia Faizulá creció en Midland, Texas. Obtuvo un MFA del programa de la Virginia Commonwealth University en escritura creativa. Su primer libro, Seam (2014), ganó el Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Centrado alrededor de una larga secuencia de "Entrevista con un Birangona", el libro explora la ética de las entrevistas, así como la historia de la birangona, mujeres de Bangladesh violadas por soldados paquistaníes durante la Guerra de Liberación de 1971.
Faizulá recibió un premio Fulbright para viajar a Bangladesh y entrevistar al birangona.
Honores y premios de Faizullah incluyen Associated Writers Program Intro Journals Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, a Copper Nickel Poetry Prize, a Ploughshares 'Cohen Award, and a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Margaret Bridgman Scholarship in Poetry.
Vive en Detroit y es editora para el Asian American Literary Review and Organic Weapon Artes Chapbook Series.
Sobre su libro, ella mismo dijo: «no creo que haya un arte que pueda expresar siquiera algo tan irracional y tan violento como el sufrimiento humano. He intentado escribir un libro que trate de las limitaciones que tiene ese expresar». A ese libro pertenece el siguiente poema.
José Luis Justés Amador
Leyendo a Celan en el museo
de la Guerra de Liberación
—Día de la Celebración de la Independencia, 2011, Dhaka
i.
En el jardín, en estas pilas de sillas
delante del escenario vacío – cerca estamos
Señor, cerca y a la mano. Señor,
acepta estas ofrendas humildes:
pilas de galletas envueltas en celofán,
pilas de hueso tras el cristal: tibia,
columna. Pilas de platillos blancos, círculos
de porcelana con pilas de tazas
limpiadas por labios. Quijada, Señor. Galerías
de recortes laminados declarando la Guerra.
Hay manos desapilando las sillas en filas. Los muertos:
siguen suplicando. ¿Para qué, Señor?
Bayonetas melladas ¿afiladas alguna vez como el viento?
¿Pilas de clavículas pálidas como luna? Una mano
ii.
Pilas de clavículas pálidas como luna a los que una mano
les limpia el polvo. Perdí la única palabra
que me quedaba: hermana. El viento
nos atraviesa – nos sentamos, esperamos
los cantos de la nación y perdidos en limpias
y largas filas bajo esta bandera
verde hoja – sus círculos cosidos en rojo nos
manchan de brillantes brotes rojo sangre, nos
manchan de seda de río –te vi, hermana, parada
en ese brillo – vi la luz aserrando
a través de la ventana del carro, cardándonos
de rosa – te vi, hermana, tu cabeza
sangrando, un flor de shapla desplegándose
despetalándose lenta por el agua muda –
iii.
Despetalándose lenta
por el agua muda
proas de traineras
redes de arrastre
de peces plateados que se doblan
en las manos abiertas
que les han de tallar
la piel.
Somos manos,
vaciamos
a dos manos la oscuridad. Somos
enraizados
cuerpos en fila delante
de los miembos
azules de los bailarines
que pintan
de índigo la luz oscura, después
el jazmín iluminando
una taza, después
las manos dando vuelta
a postales con la bandera
y una flor, manos
acunando la replica de un barco,
manos
que empujan aquí y allá
a la nada. Tú,
un cadáver, hermana, bañada
en jazmín, azul-
iv.
Un cadáver: hermana, bañada en jazmín. Azul,
la luz me lleva de la tienda de regalos
a una galería de piedra gris: charcos de corazón gris,
dos bocados de silencio: la sombra
que arroja el retrato de una mujer violada atrapada
en un marco, el rostro oculto detrás de su propio
río de cabello: fotografía ante la que una muchacha
de la edad de tu cadáver se detiene
y pregunta. ¿Alguien le hizo daño?
¿Alguien le hizo algo malo? Su madre
no contesta. Su padre se vuelve, se estremece
mientras la luz bebe nuestros silencios,
mientras yo me vuelvo también luz, estremecida hasta el hueso
enseña enseña a tus manos a dormir
v.
enseña enseña a tus manos a dormir
porque sus manos no pueden contener la forma
de una flor de shapla arrancada de su hoja verde
porque sus manos no pueden contener la pena
ni luz ni hermana en sus manos puños
de su propio pelo en sus muñecas pulseras de cuentas
como esa con la que luchabas con tu mano
la misma mano que golpeó el rostro pálido
de la hermana mira la joven se para delante
de la foto de la joven que juró que no
se convertiría en la anciana
que se enrosca en un colchón de yute
que te tiende una pulsera una extraña perdida fue
corporalmente presente llegaste casi a vivir
vi.
Corporalmente presente, llegaste casi a vivir,
la poeta, en ese pequeño vestido azul todavía manchado,
dice la cédula, con la sangre de niño
aplastado hasta la muerte por una bota de soldado. ¿Quién falló
y falla? – noches en las que no podías soportar los sonidos
trillados de tu propio latir apresurado. Presiono
un botón: 1971 salta de pronto: cuerpos en blanco y negro
que marchan en pixeleadas columnas. Las noches
que resucitaste la Palabra, abrumada por el mar,
abrumada por la estrella. Un mujer pixeleada atada
con una cuerda blanca a un palo negro, sus sari
blanco manchado de barro o de sangre. Noches
en las que eras la cera para sellar lo no escrito –
la pantalla se vuelve blanca en la luz que cae.
vii.
La pantalla se pone blanca. En la luz que cae
el hueco de la escalera es un túnel chamuscado. Salimos
por él al jardín – mi falda enciende una rasgadura
en la noche quemada. Algo silente,
algo siguió su camino – algo rechina los dientes
dentro de mí, hermana – por las brechas
de la pintura que me guían a través de esas salas alineadas
con vitrinas, pasando cintas de ametralladora
que forman la palabra Bangla. Aquí, en este
escenario, un bailarín frente a nosotros inclina
sus miembros una vez más. El escenario se silencia.
Nos reunimos otra vez: souvenirs de hueso.
Reza, señor. Estamos cerca. Cerca estamos, Señor –
en un jardín, en estos montones de sillas.
Versión de José Luis Justes Amador
http://circulodepoesia.com/
Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito
—at Apollo Hospital, Dhaka
Let me break
free of these lace-frail
lilac fingers disrobing
the black sky
from the windows of this
room, I sit helpless, waiting,
silent—sister,
because you drew from me
the coil of red twine: loneliness—
spooled inside—
once, I wanted to say one
true thing, as in, I want more
in this life ,
or, the sky is hurt, a blue vessel —
we pass through each other,
like weary
sweepers haunting through glass
doors, arcing across gray floors
faint trails
of dust we leave behind—he
touches my hand, waits for me
to clutch back
while mosquitoes rise like smoke
from this cold marble floor,
from altars,
seeking the blood still humming
in our unsaved bodies—he sighs,
I make a fist,
I kill this one leaving raw
kisses raised on our bare necks—
because I woke
alone in the myth of one life, I will
myself into another—how strange,
to witness
nameless, the tangled shape
our blood makes across us,
my open palm.
Tarfia Faizullah, "Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito" from Seam .
En Route to Bangladesh, Another Crisis of Faith
—at Dubai International Airport and ending with a line by César Vallejo
Because I must walk
through the eye-shaped
shadows cast by these
curved gold leaves thick
atop each constructed
palm tree, past displays
of silk scarves, lit
silhouettes of blue-bottled
perfume—because
I grip, as though for the first
time, a paper bag
of french fries from McDonald's,
and lick, from each fingertip,
the fat and salt as I stand alone
to the side of this moving
walkway gliding me past dark-
eyed men who do not look
away when I stare squarely
back—because standing
in line to the restroom I want
only to pluck from her
black sweater this one shimmering
blond hair clinging fast—
because I must rest the Coke, cold
in my hand, beside this
toilet seat warmed by her thighs,
her thighs, and hers.
Here, at the narrow mouth
of this long, humid
corridor leading to the plane,
I take my place among
this damp, dark horde of men
and women who look like me—
because I look like them—
because I am ashamed
of their bodies that reek so
unabashedly of body—
because I can—because I am
an American, a star
of blood on the surface of muscle.
Tarfia Faizullah, "En Route to Bangladesh, Another Crisis of Faith" from Seam
This piece was submitted by Tarfia Faizullah as part of the 2014 PEN World Voices Online Anthology.
Tarfia Faizullah's events: Reading from the Asian/Pacific American Avant-garde and What's Your Muse?
What I Want is Simple
La terre est bleue comme un orange.
-for Craig
Begin with the fuchsia dress
I wore the night the scent
of storm threaded the brief
wind gusting away its hem
from my thighs—begin
with this orange, moldy
in its yellow bowl by the window.
Days it has rested there,
glossy as a child after a summer
spent outside. Days I have
looked past it—to crumbling
brick walls of other buildings,
smoke from a chimney, engraved
for a moment on gray sky.
It bewilders me to have looked
at this piece of fruit without
seeing it grow its own blue
shroud. Now you, too, are
gone. In that photo, I am
a waist towards which black
hair spills. You smile towards
someone or something I can’t
see. I want back that night you
pulled me into your lap, insisted
I stay there. I want the elegant
hinge of your wrist, the way you
were always both body & bird.
The way you were never & always
listening. You were wearing
a green sweater. There is
so little to take back, receive,
give. There is, somewhere, your
green sweater. What I want is
simple: you, alive, like the day
we bought an orange like the one
I lift now from its bowl to throw
out. How many times I have looked
at the world and turned away.
Amulet
The day an autumn orphan, and we yank roots
from Texas earth: onions, then tomatoes split open
by sun, insect, rain. This is still the one
gift we have in common: desire for bone
below flesh: excavated hedges laid bare, recalling
the loam we spring from, return to. Battered by blue
wind, you bend and pull, your blanched blue
shirt sweat-soaked, fingers wizened as ginger root
as they curl around aortas of garlic: recollections
of you always here between cloud-pungent openings
of ash trees, the love between us hard bone.
These days, you’re easy with me like one
of your patients—another girl who will have won
you over with a smile, questions about the blue-
tubed stethoscope you press against her heart, not bone
but rhythmic and radiant flesh. You’ll be gentle, root
in your labcoat pocket for a sweet she’ll open
after it’s closed into her palm. I still recall
nights no sweetness passed between us, but recall
each twilight you taught me to knit a wide, white net, one
of the only hollows unfreighted by her ghost. You open
the door, speak to me. I’m here, standing against blue
midnight, and now you see me. I swear, the roots
between us are intact, basilic as a vein of coral vine. Bone-
pale: color of her corpse in its narrow casket: bone-
pale: wet marrow of poplars in rain: recollection
of your other daughter flung from car to sky, an uncut root
between us. You are the man walking alone with one
amulet to guide you: a Qur’an, pages thumbed blue.
I’m alone in your kitchen, palming a tomato, opening
drawers for the sharpest blade to slice its red flesh open.
You are bent over a prayer mat, the horizon a thin bone
disappearing into the backyards of other families. Branch-blue,
my uncut valve the night I walked out of me away from you. Recall
that I left with only the name you gave me: the one
amulet guiding me through and back to you, its roots
ravined below the poplar you taught me to tend. Some roots we don’t
need to see. Open your palm. Recall my name, the only one I have.
Hold it steady, like each bone I wish you would forgive yourself for breaking.
Self-Portrait as Slinky
It’s true I wanted
to be beautiful before
authentic. Say the word
exotic. Say minority—
a coiled, dark curl
a finger might wrap
itself in—the long
staircase, and I was
the momentum
of metal springs
descending down
and down—say tension.
The long staircase,
and I was a stacked series
of spheres fingertipped
again into motion—say
taut, like a child
who must please her
parents but doesn’t
know how—a curl pulled
thin—I wanted to be
a reckoning, to gather
into each day’s pale
hands—that helpless
lurching forward
in the dark—another
soaked black ringlet,
that sudden halting—
You Ask Why Write About It Again
Because a child’s handprints are smudged
on cream and green walls, because the deaf
child cannot know the sounds of her own grief,
because sleep comes or does not come. The hand
pressed hard against the window does not want
to be the hand that lifts the pen again to write
the word sister, the word silence—the hand desires
blossoms, instead: white gardenias, whorls of pooled
wax. Because the blade held by the hand is still a blade
even when used for crushing and not cutting: dill,
cardamom, a bulb of garlic, pink and yellow pills.
Because we want to be hand and blade and window,
but are stains on walls instead—praise the lantern
mottled with dusk, the heft and shimmer of grief
unnamed but questioned. Praise the red leaves
and white candle, the metal canisters brimming
with lentils, cumin, fennel—praise the ailanthus moth
spinning its coarse silk because it cannot stop and it must.
"What I Want is Simple" first appeared in Poet Lore. "Amulet" first appeared in the American Poetry Review. "Self-Portrait as Slinky" appeared in Ninth Letter and Best New Poets 2014. "You Ask Why Write About It Again" first appeared in Copper Nickel.
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