NAOMI REPLANSKY [18.227]

Naomi Replansky 

Nacida el 23 de mayo de 1918. Poeta americana que nació en el Bronx; actualmente reside en Manhattan. Su Collected Poems, ganaron el Premio de the Poetry Society of America's 2013 William Carlos Williams y fue finalista para el Premio 2014. Los poemas de Replansky han aparecido en muchas revistas literarias y antologías, tal como No More Masks!, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies, and Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era.

Sus cuatro libros de poesía son:

Ring Song (Scribners 1952)

Twenty-One Poems, Old and New (Gingko Press 1988)

The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Another Chicago Press 1994)

Collected Poems (Black Sparrow Press/Godine 2012)

"Mis principales influencias poéticas", afirma Replansky, "han sido William Blake, canciones populares, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Emily Dickinson y la poesía japonesa." 

Quejas elevadas a la encargada,

musa de la poesía lírica,

por el sindicato internacional

de los poetas líricos

1. Nunca nos dices qué debemos hacer,

pero sentimos tu repugnante desagrado

si no está hecho,

y bien hecho.

2. No nos pagas por hora

ni por semana, ni por año.

Podríamos bregar toda una vida

sin el premio de tu sonrisa,

pero hay que ver cómo bendices

al que un día vertiginoso

sacó una pieza de la nada.

3. Careces de instrumentos de precisión

que midan el valor de nuestras producciones.

(Tus inspectores cambian sin cesar

y algunos te profesan poco afecto).

4. Nos encierras en nuestro idioma

hasta cuando sentimos el frío de la patria.

Cuanto más justas son nuestras palabras,

más radiantes su música y encanto,

más arduo es para ellas

conservar su atractivo

cuando intentan cruzar una frontera.

5. Promueves a los jóvenes de entre nosotros.

¿Qué más pueden hacer los veteranos?

¿Aprender otro oficio? Si hasta esperas

que esos viejos decrépitos compitan

con la versión más joven de sí mismos.

Exigimos una pensión que dé Seguridad estética

y un pequeño subsidio de Sabiduría

para sobrellevar los males del invierno.

6. Debemos mantener la productividad

aun cuando no hay demanda.

Nuestras piezas atestan el mercado.

Nadie nos presta oído.

¿Debemos achacarlo a nuestra incompetencia?

7. Tenemos quejas. Nos quejamos.

Pero nunca nos pondremos en huelga.

Tememos por el cierre de tu fábrica

como tenemos nuestra muerte.

Hace tiempo, cuando nos diste empleo,

pensamos que sería de por vida.

1995

Traducción Jordi Doce

Naomi Replansky (born May 23, 1918) is an American poet who was born in the Bronx; she currently resides in Manhattan. Her Collected Poems won the Poetry Society of America's 2013 William Carlos Williams Award and was a finalist for the 2014 Poets' Prize. Replansky's poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, such as No More Masks!, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies, and Poets of the Non-Existent City: Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era. 

Her four books of poetry are:

Ring Song (Scribners 1952)

Twenty-One Poems, Old and New (Gingko Press 1988)

The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Another Chicago Press 1994)

Collected Poems (Black Sparrow Press/Godine 2012)

"My chief poetic influences," Replansky states, "have been William Blake, folk songs, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Emily Dickinson and Japanese poetry."

Showing posts with label poems . Show all posts

AUGUST 27, 2009

The Dangerous World

The Dangerous World collects seventy-some poems of Naomi Replansky's written between 1934 and 1994, some previously published in Ring Song . Published by Another Chicago Press, it is unfortunately now out of print. Selected poems are posted below on this blog.

Night Prayer for Various Trades 

Machinist in the pillow's grip, 

Be clumsy and be blind 

And let the gears spin free, and turn 

No metal in your mind. 

Long, long may the actress lie 

In slumber like a stone, 

The helpless words that rise from sleep 

Be no words but her own. 

Laborer, drift through a dark 

Remote from clay and lime. 

O do not tunnel through the night 

In unpaid overtime. 

You out-of-work, walk into sleep. 

It will not ask to see 

Your proof of skill or strength or youth 

And shows its movies free. 

And may the streetcleaner float down 

A spotless avenue. 

Who red-eyed wake at morning break 

All have enough to do. 

Enough to do. Now let the day 

Its own accountings keep. 

But may our dreams keep other time 

Throughout our sprawling sleep. 

Foreigner 

He is alone and unarmed 

And has no vessel for his vanity. 

His curse is spoken, but nothing trembles. 

His praise like rain runs down the gutters. 

Laughter seizes him and he is silent. 

Grief shakes him, he hides it in a stare. 

And he can change nothing where he passes 

Though he walk barefoot through bristling events. 

A room, a sea, a street, a war, 

Gather within and sinew him for speech 

Richer than this, but who will hear him out. 

O who will know him unto nakedness. 

The Weeping Sea Beast 

Tentacled for food, 

You range your underwater neighborhood. 

To look, to like, to eat, to break your fast! 

Before you move an inch an hour is past, 

Your prey is past, a swarm of scales, an eye, 

A round fish eye, a rude unblinking eye. 

You close on nothing; slowly you untwine 

Your many arms and trail them through the brine. 

Now sailors at the surface hear you cry, 

And from those heights they cannot fathom why. 

For there are agile creatures all around 

Who dart like flames through this rich hunting ground 

And others who lie still and gaping wide 

And make no move; but armies come inside. 

Complaint of the Ignorant Wizard 

Whoever gave me magic told me lies. 

This laying on of hands works otherwise. 

Every whirling part of me is warm 

Yet I come down on here like a snowstorm. 

I speak the word that might unlock the rock 

But hard upon that word my two jaws lock. 

My sleeping power gathering to leap 

Leaps tooth and claw into a deeper sleep. 

The love potion I slyly pour for one 

Is by another seized and swallowed down. 

I learned the speech of birds; now every tree 

Screams out to me a baleful prophecy. 

Into a statue's lungs I breathe my own. 

Sighing, it fills me with this sigh of stone. 

My answer to the riddle bears with it 

A greater riddle and more desperate. 

All all runs wild, all wild and uncontrolled. 

A toad hops from my mouth instead of gold. 

.