A J Seymour
Arthur James Seymour (12 enero 1914 a 25 diciembre 1989), o AJ Seymour, fue un guyanés, poeta, ensayista, memorialista y editor fundador de la revista de literaria Kyk-Over-Al.
Nacido en Georgetown, Guayana Británica, hijo de James Tudor Seymour, un agrimensor, y de su esposa filipina, de soltera Dey, AJ Seymour asistió a la escuela y a la Academia de Guyana antes de entrar en la universidad de la Reina, la más prestigiosa escuela de chicos de la Guayana Británica, con una Beca Júnior del Gobierno, en 1928.
Se casó con Elma Editha Bryce, maestra, el 31 de julio de 1937. Tuvieron tres hijas y tres hijos.
En 1933, ingresó en el Servicio Civil de la Guayana Británica como voluntario no remunerado, trabajando en los departamentos de impuestos de correos y de ingresos antes de incorporarse a la Oficina de Publicidad e Información. En 1954, Seymour se había abierto camino hasta la posición de Jefe de Gobierno Servicios de Información. Este fue un momento preocupante para la Guayana; el Partido Progresista del Pueblo (PPP) del gobierno encabezado por Cheddi Jagan, que fue elegido en 1953, había sido destituido de su cargo por las autoridades coloniales después de sólo cuatro meses y medio, lo que desató una fase de agitación social y política que iba a durar más de diez años.
En 1962, Seymour salió de la administración pública y aceptó el cargo de Oficial de Información y Colaboración Cultural de la Organización del Caribe, con sede en Puerto Rico. Regresó a la Guayana en 1965, un año antes de la Independencia, y trabajó en el Demerara Bauxite Company (Demba), con sede en Mackenzie (la ciudad fue más tarde renombrado Linden) hasta 1971; primero como Director de Relaciones con la Comunidad, después como oficial de relaciones públicas. En 1972 se desempeñó como Literario Coordinador para el primer Festival de las Artes del Caribe (Carifesta), celebrada en Guyana; en 1973 se reincorporó a la función pública como Presidente Adjunto del Departamento de Cultura y Director de Escritura Creativa. Se retiró en 1979.
Poeta
En 1936, Seymour comenzó a escribir poemas. En 1937 había completado su primera colección, Verse; su segundo, More Poems, siguió en 1940.
Bibliografía seleccionada:
Verse (1937), Georgetown: Guyana Chronicle
More Poems (1940), Georgetown: Guyana Chronicle
Over Guiana, Clouds (1944), Georgetown: Guyana Standard
Suns in My Blood (1944), Georgetown: Guyana Standard
Poetry in These Sunny Lands (1945), Georgetown: Caribia
Six Songs (1946), Georgetown: Caribia
The Guiana Book (1948), Georgetown: Argosy
Leaves from the Trees (1951), Georgetown: Miniature Poets, Series A
Selected Poems (1965), Georgetown: Author
Monologue - Poems (1968), Georgetown: Author
Patterns (1970)
Images of Majority (1978)
Selected Poems (1983)
Collected Poems 1937-1989 (2000; with an Introduction by Ian McDonald, and edited by Ian McDonald and J. de Weever), New York: Blue Parrot Press.
Primero de agosto
Imagina
a un pueblo que por más de cien años
usa una librea natural bajo el sol
y brota por generaciones y muere
en una franja costera de Sudamérica.
Observa a un pueblo postrado
enderezar sus rodillas y erguirse
y con ojos oscuros desafiar al sol.
Mira cómo el poder oculto arquea el ceño
y añade profundidad a la visión de los ojos.
Imagina
a un pueblo que por más de cien años
trabaja contra el clima
lucha contra el prejuicio
y crece en un entorno ajeno
confinado, pero estirando sus miembros
y desafla al sol
A veces la sangre olvida los árboles en flor,
rojos flamboyanes en el sol intenso y claro
y despierta recuerdos de soles más calientes,
de otros árboles de verde brillante bajo un cíel
que quema un azul más profundo y vital.
La sangre regresa:
atravesando desde África
los vientos cerraban sus bocas, el mar se calmaba
y dejaba jadeando a las pequeñas barcas, después el Sol
desde lo alto, contemplaba la escena entre los mástiles.
Los niflos muriendo por docenas bajo cubierta
las mujeres colgando en manojos de flores, los hombres
de pie, con la rabia esculpida en la frente.
Un navfo de infamia desde el corazón de África
ralces torcidas y sangrando desde su tierra natal,
una mancha de raza que se esparce por el océano.
Después la nueva vida de cadenas y pantanos punzantes
látigos destellando en el aire en oscilantes arabescos.
Imagina
a un pueblo que por más de cien aflos
usa una librea natural bajo el sol
y brota por generaciones y muere
en una franja costera de Sudamérica.
Traducción de Claudia Eguiarte
First of August
Gather into the mind
Oyer a hundred years of a people
Wearing a naturalliyery in the sun
And budding up in generations and dying
Upon a strip of South American coastland.
See a prostrate people
Straighten its knees and stand erect
And stare dark eyes against the sun.
Watch hidden power dome the brow
And lend a depth of vision to the eyes.
Gather into the mind
Oyer a hundred years of a people
Toiling against climate
Working against prejudice
Growing within an alien framework
Cramped, but stretching its limbs
And staring against the sun.
Sometimes the blood forgets the flowering trees,
Red with flamboyants in the hard cIear sun
And traces memories from hotter suns,
Other green-brilliant trees beneath a sky
That burns a deeper and more vital blue.
The blood goes back
Coming across to land from Africa
Coming across to land from Africa
The winds would close their mouths, the sea would smooth
And leave the little ships gasping, then the Sun
Would standabove and gaze right down the masts.
Children dying in dozens below the decks
The women drooping in clumps of flowers, the men
Standing about, with anger carved upon their foreheads.
A ferry of infamy from the heart of Africa
Roots torn and bleeding from their native soil,
A stain of race spreading across the ocean.
Then the new life of chains and stinging swamps
Whips flickering in the air in curling arabesques.
Gather into the mind
Over a hundred years of a people
Wearing a natural livery in the sun
And budding up in generations and dying
Upon a strip of South American coastland.
The Legend OF Kaieteur
1. Now Makonaima, the Great Spirit dwelt
In the huge mountain rock that throbbed and felt
The swift black waters of Potaro's race
Pause on the lip, commit themselves to space
And dive the half mile to the rocks beneath.
Black were the rocks with sharp and angry teeth
And on those rocks the eager waters died,
Above the gorge that seethed and foamed and hissed
Rose, resurrected into lovely mist.
The rock He lived in towered a half mile high
So that it seemed a rival to the sky
And over it this living mist He drew
To curtain off Divinity from view.
He gave it too the privilege to choose
To take the glory of the rainbow's hues
To wear at morning, and for changed delight
The marvelous sunsets of the tropic night.
From day to day, behind this rainbowed screen,
The Father, the inscrutable, unseen,
Would ponder on His domain of the earth
And all the nations He had given birth
And He caused flowers to weave upon the ground
Their rich embroideries, and He set around
The village where each tribe worked all day long
A veritable tapestry of song
2. From birds that in the branches built their bowers
And spent within the shade quick musical hours,
So every wind blew peace and fortune down
From the sweet heavens, and everywhere was sung
A song of praise to the Great spirit above
That fathered them in kindliness and love
And every moon each tribe would come and float
Upon the stream a sacrificial boat
New-carved and painted, laden with fish and fruit
And watch it gain speed as it neared and shoot
Over the rock into the gorge below.
And as the waters, so the centuries flow
Until the savage Caribishi came
And put the Patamona to the flame.
They came by night and took them in their sleep
Slaughtered the guards and drove away the sheep
Ravished the women, burnt their huts and shields,
A few, the merest remnant, took to flight
And under shelter of the friendly night
Escaped from the pursuing torches sent
To slay them in the caches where they went.
These took the terrible tidings of the raid
To the far camp their restless kin had made
On the Potaro-that the feud was awake
And counsel what defenses they could make
3. Old Kaie was chief in counsel. He was wise
Over a hundred seasons had those eyes
See in their passage. Time had made the dim
But with its wisdom compensated him.
He knew the cures for all men's ills and fears
And he had words for women in their tears
To comfort them. He set all day and talked
Unto the tribe, for painfully he walked
On legs like rotten trunks wherein chigoes
Had nested and made caves of all his toes
Just now he counseled, "Since our arms are small
I and another to the mountain wall
Will go to question Makonaima's will
What He requires that we must fulfill
In sacrificial offerings. He is kind
His orders will chase fear out of our mind."
Then someone murmured "But can Kaie's feet stand
The troublesome journey through steep, rocky land?"
Flame sprang to Kaie's eyes, "Will you never learn,
From what the mind wills, body will not turn?"
So the next morning labored up the slope
Kaie and the one other with their ropes
4. Strapped round their backs, their bags of magic art
With all the stuff that in their spells had part.
Kaie's feet oft staggered and the westering sun
Was swallowed up by night, the day was done
Before they came upon the slab of stone
That ends the path to the Great Spirit's home Alone
They stood while the vast starry night was full
Of falling water. Kaie felt his pull
His arm. "Look there," "Yes, Makonaima's birds,
They are His messengers, they speak His words,
These small black cruiser birds, they fly in flocks
And feed on lana seed among the rocks. "
And now the birds made swoopings round the pair
And now the birds made swoopings round the pair
And chattering, brushed Kaie's cheek and kissed his ear.
Twice, thrice, they did this. Then with sudden flight
They wheeled and veered off through the seeing Night.
Then in a voice that swelled and sank and broke
With the great wealth of joy he felt, Kaie spoke
"Oh, great is Makonaima and the words
That he has spoken by message of his birds.
I must go down the passage of the river.
5. That I may sit before His face for ever
In His great house, the everlasting rock.
And He has promised that no harm, no shock
Shall bruise our people, for His Watch and ward
Shall circle us and He shall be our guard.
I am accounted for a sacrifice
For all the tribe. You with your younger eyes
Shall see the offering that you may tell
How boldly Kaie clasped such a death, how well
He lost his life to save his threatened race
And shadow them with the eternal peace."
So in the morning, while the dim mist wrestled
And the fall thundered and the deep gorge seethed
That other sat at vantage by the wall
And scanned the river to the waterfall.
He saw the sun o'er-peep the world and throw
Tide after tide of golden ray and glow
6. Against the fall, flood full on its attire,
Its misty veil, and catch that mist afire.
Amazed, he stared. The opalescent light
Deepened and sank and changed. Then in his sight
Below the point that Kaie had bid him mark
He saw Kaie in a sacrificial bark.
The frail boat bobbed and bucked within the grip
Of the live waters that hurried it to the lip
Over the abyss. Kaie then raised his tall
Huge bulk in the boat and towered over the fall,
A cruciform over the flaming mist.
Then with a force that nothing could resist
The boat rent all that misty veil in two,
Drawing a dark line down the rainbow hue.
But of Kaie's body never showed a trace,
He sat with Makonaima, before his face
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario