jueves, 22 de octubre de 2015

MELISSA STUDDARD [17.265] Poeta de Estados Unidos


MELISSA STUDDARD

Melissa Studdard, nacida el 5 de agosto de 1969, Tuscaloosa, Alabama es una autora americana, poeta, editora, crítico literario, presentadora de televisión y profesora. 

Obras escritas de Melissa Studdard son ampliamente publicadas y son frecuentes las de carácter espiritual. En su mayoría se centran en temas de unidad, trascendencia, divinidad, y potencial humano. 

Studdard es profesora universitaria a tiempo completo en Lone Star College-Tomball.

Melissa Studdard nació en Alabama, Estados Unidos, se crió en Texas. Recibió su licenciatura (1991) y MA (1995) de la Universidad de Houston, y su MFA (1997) de Sarah Lawrence College.

Obras 

Six Weeks to Yehidah (2011)
My Yehidah (2011)
The Tiferet Talk Interviews (2013)
I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (2014)

Trabajos cortos seleccionados 

El trabajo de Studdard ha sido publicado en decenas de diarios, revistas y antologías, incluyendo Boulevard (magazine), Southern Humanities Review, Pleiades, American Book Review, Poets & Writers, Connecticut Review , and Psychology Today.

Premios y Honores 

2011: Winner: The Forward National Literature Award for Six Weeks to Yehidah 
2012: Finalist: Readers Favorite Award for Six Weeks to Yehidah
2012: Finalist: The National Indie Excellence Award for Six Weeks to Yehidah 
2012: Winner: The Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Six Weeks to Yehidah 
2013: Winner: Readers Favorite Award for The Tiferet Talk Interviews [
2013: Winner: The Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for The Tiferet Talk Interviews  ]
2013: Winner: International Book Award for 2013 Six Weeks to Yehidah 


RESPETO

Porque su cuerpo es el invierno dentro de una cueva
porque alguien hizo
fuego allí y olvidó apagarlo
porque la hora de dormir es un castillo
que está construyendo dentro de sí misma
con un foso
y compuertas
y barreños llenos de niebla
porque cuando sueltas
las riendas
de los caballos
caes sobre acantilados y te conviertes
en polillas antes de tocar fondo
porque sus pezuñas dejan huellas de medianoche
en el cielo
porque los conejos de peluche
son mejores para guardar secretos
que las manos selladas
porque cuando el mundo
creció dentro de ella
lo sostenía con fuerza como una bola Kegel
y preguntó si en la lucha Atlas
cargaba con una cosa tan pequeña
sobre
su espalda

Versión de Carlos Alcorta


Bring on the cold.

I’m going to meet this life
without gloves or scarves or boots
and ride bareback through the cobbled
streets of time, howling incantations
into the mist and threading mystery
through the folds of day. Let the ticking
minutes land where they may:
I point my heart at an uncharted
path, lift from the earth,
trot on the wind. No Nostradamu
could predict the intricate
twists and turns this horse will take
down alleys and through storms,
shaking its magical tail,
its righteous mane,
clopping the cobblestone
and trying, trying like hell
to buck me off. Let it
snow and sleet. I’ve got no fur
coat to meet winter with this year,
just a raw and broken heart
and the waterfalls in my chest
where my lungs should be.
So go ahead. Bring it on: cold
and heat, hurricanes, tornadoes, quakes.
I’ve got the freedom of the dispossessed,
that fire in my throat,
the lick of truth,
and I’ll sing it loud
because I wear
the philosopher’s stone
like a smile, don a raven
on my shoulder, sport the alchemy
to transform my demons into gods.


 
In the Teeth of Her Frown

That was the year we
prayed inside the temples inside
each other’s mouths, lit our tongues
in hope’s crossfire,
while the child called
Mama Mama
to the stone-eyed
road. Dumped on the highway like a dog. That was
the year we knelt to siren scream, tried to help her:
her polka-dotted suitcase, her
scabbed knees, snow warm blood.
When we asked her name, she said
thousands of lies live inside her the color of night,
like termites chewing down a barn,
like a card house
about to fall. We said,
We hate the person who did this to you.
She said, But what can you tell me
about love?

 
Hanging from the Rafters

We got her a kitten
because her wrist was the color
of apples, browning just a little from the bite.
Her chest was a moth in a killing jar.
If you could trace her veins:
the widest rivers in the most fertile lands.
And it seemed for a while
sort of
Norman Rockwell,
sort of
okay. Her ruffle panties,
her Barbie dolls, the homemade cards.
Then one day
we discovered the carrots
floating in the toilet:
enemy soldiers from the reenactment,
refusing ablution,
their dark hearts reminding us
the body doesn’t forget.

   
 
Losing Track of the Skeletons

Maybe she was building a sunset
out of bones. How could we tell through
the burning? Every
door she’d locked had been broken down. All
her windows smashed. We asked her age,
and she said she was a vacant house full of squatters,
that she wandered night with an owl
on the tip of a breeze.
Later, we drove her home through ash
as she sat singing
a river of angry fish. We fed her
bananas and blueberry syrup over
waffles with chocolate milk. We
conjured fairies and lucky
band-aids and unicorns for her wounds.
Soon, there was nothing left in her
but little girl, nothing but crescent
eyes and yawning, the burden of unearned trust.
And, so, we were
destroyed,
tragically hooked. And
she, being hurricane, or well-timed
laughter (who
knows which?) tore up
the one path
we thought we had cleared.


 

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