LIZ BERRY [17.049]

LIZ BERRY 

Liz Berry nació en Black Country y ahora vive en Birmingham. Recibió un Premio Eric Gregory en 2009, un Mentorship Arvon-Jerwood en 2011 y ganó el concurso de Poesía de Londres en 2012. Su plaquette The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls fue publicada por Tall Lighthouse en 2010. Liz trabaja como asistente editor de poesía en Ambit revista. Su primera colección, Black Country (Chatto & Windus, 2014), fue una recomendación Poetry Book Society y ganó el Premio Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2014.

Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in Birmingham. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2009, an Arvon-Jerwood Mentorship in 2011 and won the Poetry London competition in 2012. Her pamphlet The Patron Saint of Schoolgirls was published by Tall Lighthouse in 2010. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, been broadcast on BBC Radio and recorded for the Poetry Archive. Liz’s debut collection, Black Country (Chatto & Windus, 2014), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2014. Black Country was chosen as a book of the year by The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mail, The Big Issue and The Morning Star.

 

PATRIA NEGRA

Los transeúntes lo vieron primero, enorme

sobre la ladera por la A41,

un Pegaso sin alas, las pezuñas

pateando la carretera a distancia.

Había aparecido durante la noche.

Una negra sombra en los matorrales,

galopando por encima de las puertas

de las fábricas en ruinas,

mirando hacia el este, hacia los pozos,

la boca abierta como si pudiera

tragarse el sol que se elevaba

por detrás del artilugio de las alas.

Se corrió la voz. Se congregaron multitudes.

Niños, dijo alguien,

pero cuando examinaron sus flancos

encontraron carbón puro,

carbón donde no había sido extraído

desde hacía años, donde las casas

todavía corren el riesgo de que las traguen pozos vacíos

y las colinas están surcadas por cicatrices.

Un regalo del subsuelo,

acarreando el pasado

de la tierra muerta. Ancianos

arrodillados por respirar el humo

de las emanaciones, un susurro

en sus oídos, alejándose

en silencio, los puños apretados,

las caras cubiertas de lágrimas.

Versión de Carlos Alcorta

Birmingham Roller

 

“We spent our lives down in the blackness… those birds brought us up to the light.”

(Jim Showell – Tumbling Pigeons and the Black Country)

Wench, yowm the colour of ower town:

concrete, steel, oily rainbow of the cut.

 

Ower streets am in yer wings,

ower factory chimdeys plumes on yer chest,

 

yer heart’s the china ower owd girls dust

in their tranklement cabinets.

 

Bred to dazzlin in backyards by men

whose onds grew soft as feathers

 

just to touch you, cradle you from egg

through each jeth-defying tumble.

 

Little acrobat of the terraces,

we’m winged when we gaze at you

 

jimmucking the breeze, somersaulting through

the white breathed prayer of January

 

and rolling back up like a babby’s yo-yo

caught by the open donny of the clouds.

 

 

Black Country/Standard

 

wench/affectionate name for a female

yowm/ you are

cut/ canal

tranklement/bits & bobs or ornaments

onds/hands

jimmucking/ shaking

babby/ little child

donny/hand

 

 

 

 

The Patron Saint of School Girls

 

Agnes had her lamb and her black curls;

Bernadette, her nun’s frock;

but I was just a school girl,

glimpsed the holy spirit in the blue flare

of a Bunsen burner, saw a skeleton

weep in a biology lesson.

 

My miracles were revelations.

I saved seventeen girls from a fire that rose

like a serpent behind the bike sheds,

cured the scoliosis of a teacher

who hadn’t lifted her head to sing a hymn

in years. I fed the dinner hall

on one small cake and a carton of milk.

 

A cult developed. The Head Girl

kissed my cheek in the dark-room,

first years wrote my name

on the flyleaf of their hymn books,

letters appeared in my school bag,

a bracelet woven from a blonde plait.

 

My faith grew strong.

All night I lay awake hearing prayers

from girls as far as Leeds and Oxford,

comprehensives in Nottingham.

I granted supplications for A-levels,

pleas for the cooling of unrequited love,

led a sixth form in Glasgow to unforeseen triumph

in the hockey cup final.

 

Love flowed out of me like honey

from a hive, I was sweet with holiness,

riding home on the school bus,

imparting my blessings.

I was ready for wings,

to be lifted upwards like sun streaming

through the top deck windows;

to wave goodbye to school and disappear

in an astonishing ring of brightness.