JENNIFER FRANKLIN [19.575]

Jennifer Franklin

Jennifer Franklin. Poeta, EE.UU., es autora de Looming (Elixir Press, 2015). Enseña en el Hudson Valley Writers ‘Center, es coeditora de Slapering Hol Press, y vive en la ciudad de Nueva York.

Jennifer Franklin concentrated in English and Creative Writing at Brown University (AB cum laude, 1994).  She attended Columbia University School of the Arts as a Harvey Baker Fellow (MFA, 1996). Her poems debuted in the Paris Review’s “Ten New Poets” issue in 1996. Her first full-length collection, Looming, won the 14th Annual Editor’s Prize from Elixir Press and was published in April 2015.

Franklin's poetry has appeared widely in literary magazines and journals such as Antioch Review, Gettysburg Review, Pequod, Southwest Review, Western Humanities Review, New England Review, The Nation, Salmagundi, Boston Review, Poetry Daily, and Guernica. Two poems from her new manuscript appeared on poets.org as part of the "poem-a-day series." Franklin's work has been translated into Romanian and Portuguese. A selection of her poetry is featured in Andrew Solomon’s award winning book, Far From the Tree. Her chapbook, Persephone’s Ransom (Finishing Line Press) was published in September 2011. Franklin is co-editor of Slapering Hol Press, the small press imprint of The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. She teaches poetry workshops at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center and lives in New York City.


EL FILÓSOFO NO DIJO

¿Qué secreto había descubierto Nietzsche
cuando caminaba las calles de Turín
antes de arrojar sus brazos alrededor
de un caballo que estaba siendo golpeado y colapsar
en un coma que duró una década?  Aferrándose
a la bestia marrón encogida de miedo, dijo
Madre, soy estúpido.  La cabellera salvaje y un traje
de tweed de tres piezas constreñían el cuerpo
que sostenía la mente que sabía demasiado.
¿Por qué estoy excavando respuestas de hombres muertos
cuando ellos estaban todos tan locos como yo?
El caballo, sus ojos huecos como los
del elefante birmano al que Orwell disparó
décadas más tarde, se parecía a toda
criatura traicionada. Quizás Nietzsche
vio el shock en los ojos del animal—
cómo todo humano contiene la capacidad
de infligir crueldad.  La mirada que se convierte
en reconocimiento, en resignación, en un ojo
que refleja un campo lleno de caballos caídos.

Traducción de Gabriela Adelstein


The Philosopher Did Not Say

What secret had Nietzsche discovered
when he walked the Turin streets
before he flung his arms around
a horse being beaten and collapsed
into a decade-long coma? Clinging
to the cowering brown beast, he said
Mother, I am stupid. Wild hair and a three-
piece tweed suit constrained the body
that held the mind that knew too much.
Why am I mining dead men for answers
when they were all as mad as I am?
The horse, his eyes hollow as those
of the Burmese elephant that Orwell shot
decades later, had the look of every
betrayed creature. Perhaps Nietzsche
saw the shock in the animal’s eyes—
how every human contains the capacity
to inflict cruelty. The look that turns
to recognition, to resignation, to an eye
reflecting a field full of fallen horses.

OTRA VEZ A LA ESPERA DE LOS RESULTADOS 
DE UNA BIOPSIA EN LA SALA DE EJERCICIOS 
DEL SEGUNDO PISO

Vislumbro los tulipanes cada dos segundos.
Han llegado tarde este año. Aquellos que planté

No debería haber pensado en los bulbos como          
aquellos que miraría desde aquí, rojos, como un conejo rosa.

Siete paraguas flotan; sólo uno
se invierte. El amoníaco entre las máquinas

hace este paseo a ninguna parte menos atractivo.
Un coche de policía patrulla en la siguiente ventana

¿Dónde queda aparcada una furgoneta blanca sucia? Lo
complicado es discernir si todavía

llueve. Dos puentes (no he cruzado ninguno)
Y el refugio para enfermos

mentales delincuentes través del estuario.
Una anciana oscurecida por una campana de ciruela

aparece para llamar a un taxi, pero después
de que uno se detenga, está claro que jalea a

los niños que se ríen mientras corren. Se gira
y sale de mi campo de visión. Intentaré comer

seis cosas verdes hoy y nada blanco. La
multitud danza rápido y es tan probable que

aparezcas. Mi pequeña botella de perfume
está casi vacía. Dispuesta sola una

muestra , en la bandeja de color rosa que compré
en el siglo pasado, en Florencia. No sé

si me voy a comprar una botella. Todavía incapaz
de encontrar a los cuarenta, el olor de para mí.

El cartero se desploma contra la fuente, su
cuerpo, la carga más pesada que tiene

qué llevar. ¿Cuánta lluvia haría falta para que
la fuente se desborde? Ojalá

no hubiera sido tan consciente al aprender
los fundamentos del tango argentino en

tres lecciones antes de la boda en
Salónica. Desde que leí a

Brönte, me niego a usar un paraguas..
Y me hago creer que estoy caminando los páramos incluso

en la ciudad en la que nunca
estoy. Si te dijera lo que yo

espero, no podría soportar tu pena. No haría
nada de esto sin música.

Esta sala es un trapo empapado de deseo,
incluso cuando es hueco. No es demasiado

tarde para aprender algo nuevo, incluso con esta
cicatriz de traqueotomía y tres cartas en el cajón de mi escritorio.

Nueve perros pasean después, oliendo la acera.
El tiempo no parece molestarles.

Es demasiado pronto para el presente oscuro.
No quiero salir del edificio ahora.

Traducción de Ana Gorría


Waiting Again for Biopsy Results from
the Second Floor Exercise Room

I glimpse the tulips every two seconds.
They arrived late this year. Those who planted

The bulbs must not have considered how they
Would look from here—red, paired with pink dogwood.

Seven umbrellas float by; only one
Inverts. Ammonia swathed on the machines

Makes this walk to nowhere less appealing.
A police car patrols the next window

Where a dingy white van remains parked. It
Is difficult to discern if it’s still

Raining. Two bridges (I have crossed neither)
And the asylum for the criminally

Insane loom across the estuary.
An old woman obscured by a plum cloche

Appears to hail a taxi but after
One stops, it’s clear that she is waving to

Children who laugh as they glide past. She turns
And exits my view. I will try to eat

Six green things today and nothing white. A
Flash dance mob and you are as likely to

Appear. My tiny bottle of perfume
Is almost empty. It sits alone, a

Deluxe sample, on the pink tray I bought
Last century in Florence. I don’t know

If I’ll buy a bottle—still unable
To find, at forty, my signature scent.

The postman slumps against the fountain, his
Body the heaviest load that he has

To carry. How much rain would it take for
The fountain to overflow? I wish I

Hadn’t been too self-conscious to learn the
Basics of the Argentine tango in

The three lessons before the wedding in
Thessaloniki. Ever since I read

Bronte, I refuse to use an umbrella
And pretend I’m walking the moors even

In the city. I am never where I
Am. If I told you what I look forward

To, I couldn’t bear your pity. I would
Not do any of this without music.

This room is a drenched rag of desire,
Even when it’s empty. It is not too

Late to learn something new, even with this
Trach scar and three letters in my desk drawer.

Nine dogs saunter past, smelling the sidewalk.
The weather does not seem to bother them.

It is too early to be this dark out.
I don’t want to leave the building today.


First Love

The boy beside me
is not you but he
is familiar in all

the important ways.
I pass through life
finding you over

and over again—
oppress you
with love. And every

surrogate?
Afflicted by my
kindness, they leave

me with my music.
I loved you before
I ever loved you.

My Daughter’s Body

If you saw her, you would think she was beautiful.
Strangers stop me on the street to say it.

If they talk to her they see that this beauty
Means nothing. Their sight shifts to pigeons

On the sidewalk. Their eye contact becomes
As poor as hers. They slip away slowly,

With varying degrees of grace. I never know
How much to say to explain the heartbreak.

Sometimes, I tell them. More often,
I remain silent. As her smile sears me, I hold

Her hand all the way home from the swings.
The florist hands her a dying rose and she holds it

Gently without ripping the petals like she does
To the tulips that stare at us with their insipid faces,

Pretending that they can hold my sorrow
In their outstretched cups because I knew them

Before I knew grief. They do not understand that
They are ruined for me now. I planted five hundred

Bulbs as she grew inside of me, her brain already
Formed by strands of our damaged DNA

Or something else the doctors don’t understand.
After her bath, she curls up on me for lullabies—

The only time during the day that her small body is still.
As I sing, I breathe in her shampooed hair and think

Of the skeletons in the Musée de Préhistoire
In Les Eyzies. The bones of the mother and baby

Lie in a glass case in the same position we are
In now. They were buried in that unusual pose,

Child curled up in the crook of the mother’s arm.
The archaeologists are puzzled by the position.

It doesn’t surprise me at all. It would be so easy
To die this way—both of us taking our last breaths

With nursery rhymes on our open lips
And the promise of peaceful sleep.


My Herculaneum

When I arrived, I thought I knew how to live.
I saw my future as clearly as new frescoes
On stone. What I didn’t have, I made do without—
Or invented: the trompe l’oeil mosaic in the summer
Triclinium for a real garden. The songs of birds
From the nymphaeum’s painted trees. Long expert

At knowing the world through the words of others,
I thought there would be time to live. Before her
Diagnosis, my feeling of fortune was as ostentatious

As patrician villas, tempting disaster. And like the other
Citizens of Vesuvian towns, I feared disaster would find us
But could not bring myself to pack and leave.

Solace comes seldom—it’s as rare as a preserved section
Of fresco, framed in rough wood by the archaeologists
To safeguard it still. That’s how my insides look now—

A ruined expanse of smooth stone, graffitied with residue
Of memory, caught under glass, visible if the light is right
And there’s no glare—fragmented, constant, red.






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