3 vocativos
con música de Jorge Ritter
I Semí (triste allegro)
Más hondo cada vez más fondo,
brillante cada vez más bello
homóptero
de gala,
langóstera
de lujo,
que habla, asiente, quiere
ser
Sí,
Sísí,
Sísísí,
Síííííííííí
y caer.
Un crujido en acto,
fusil que abre
fuego fatuo
bajo pies incautos,
de paseo y tan campantes,
incrustados y elegantes
entre piedras lisas y senderos,
entre orquídeas y bonsáis,
hechizo extraño,
fealdad del otro mundo,
vias sobre las vidas,
no maravilla a secas,
horror tampoco,
un salto mortal inverso,
una cabriola impresa
en esqueletos
que habla
en tarabilla
iridiscente:
Amaba tanto al ala
que le enseñó el suspenso.
Amaba tanto el trino
que le enseñó el silencio.
A decir cada vez menos
y seguir muriendo más.
A irse ya,
irse naciendo.
II Cigarra (descenso/ascenso súbito)
Inmersa
represalía,
caricia
desprovista
de pavor,
despavorida,
alimaña
afinando
su panoplia
a mi pesar.
Macho y hembra,
todo abdomen,
toda fuelle,
fuero interno,
fuera infierno.
Vibraba con locura.
III Cicada (fuga inconsútil)
Perder piso
y vivir,
ya encimada
sobrepuesta
ya enlazada
a capas y más capas de otras cosas,
cientos
de miles
de millones
reclinadas a la espera,
alharaca en despedida,
purísimos
filos
estentóreos,
pico y pala,
ostentosa oscilación
entre lamento y alabanza,
entre sustento y elemento.
Mantis religiosa
con música de Marco Antonio Castro
I
¿Zoología?
Del zooreino
súbdito
que ni nombre
merece o necesita,
y me cabe no en la boca,
cual agravio o alabanza,
sí en la mano,
cual fuete, revólver,
varita mágica,
puntal,
luz
de Bengala.
Su conjuro
campanero,
fraile rezador,
predicador:
su identidad,
la mía.
II
Apareció en el barandal
de mi tristeza,
sobre la forja negro mate
de mis últimos minutos.
Cuidado,
alertaba
la capa de aire
a mis espaldas:
no hay majestad
de cóndor de California
o sabor a crimen y tragedia
de buitre americano;
no confundas
transparencia
con plumosas vastedades
destinadas a planear;
no confundas propicio
con ubicuo,
quehacer sin sangre
del profeta literal:
de frente, imposible
sostenerle la mirada
(cosa que hasta del asesino,
in articulo mortis
se consigue).
III
Extiende las extremidades
y las une en oración
para gozar,
aplicar suma destreza
al atrapar su presa,
su móvil alimento,
pan de vida;
eleva así plegarias
al creador
e ipso facto
por arte
de milagro
se torna
inofensiva.
IV
Órbitos y antenas
coludidas
con madre natura
para el engaño:
hasta para sufrir
hay que comer,
no me mates,
mantis,
no me ingieras,
de ti misma
no me llenes.
V
¿Cuántas veces
habré abierto yo
la boca
y sacado la lengua
para recibir
el mayúsculo
arponazo,
óvalo de oblea
inmortal?
VI
Me remuerde
la conciencia,
me resuena
el corazón
a pajaritos;
alguien toca la puerta,
golpea con aldabón:
¿quién?
responde
preguntando
un alma de animal.
de Lieder: Cantos al oído, cantos al olvido
Pura López-Colomé
Listen to the poems read in the original Spanish by the poet:
“3 Vocatives” and “Praying Mantis” are taken from Hearing and Forgetting (Lieder: Cantos al oído, cantos al olvido), the most recent book of poems by Pura López-Colomé, one of Mexico’s most influential and groundbreaking poets. Published in 2012, the book is divided into two sections, “Songs to Hearing” and “Songs to Forgetting,” and these two insect poems, of course, are among the songs to hearing. Eleven different composers have set many of the poems to music, and the original edition includes the scores for a number of the songs.
I think of this book as conducting philosophical interrogations of the natural world—one’s story, history, and place in it—in the context of hearing and memory, and in the form of song. As poet Forrest Gander has written of her recent work, "Pura López-Colomé's . . . imagination, like Paul Celan's, is marked by a kind of moral severity located in language itself; the poems are less concerned with representing the observable surface of life than with tracing melodies, the surges and diminuendos of a spiritual vision. Their difficulty and accomplishment are equally located in the collision of tones, with puns and language play juxtaposed against stark emotional revelations. 'I have no interest in sincerity,' she has said. 'Sincerity and veracity are distinct.' Her concerns have necessitated the unconventional approach to language that marks her work, its meditative intensity, and its often dialogic form."
“3 Vocatives” (its three section titles giving three different names for the cricket) and “Praying Mantis” indicate some of the range and challenge—and, I hope, pleasure—of rendering this work in English: the collision of tones, the stark emotional revelations, the searches for “veracity,” the puns and language play that called on me to engage in a corresponding kind of play myself.
I think of this book as conducting philosophical interrogations of the natural world—one’s story, history, and place in it—in the context of hearing and memory, and in the form of song. As poet Forrest Gander has written of her recent work, "Pura López-Colomé's . . . imagination, like Paul Celan's, is marked by a kind of moral severity located in language itself; the poems are less concerned with representing the observable surface of life than with tracing melodies, the surges and diminuendos of a spiritual vision. Their difficulty and accomplishment are equally located in the collision of tones, with puns and language play juxtaposed against stark emotional revelations. 'I have no interest in sincerity,' she has said. 'Sincerity and veracity are distinct.' Her concerns have necessitated the unconventional approach to language that marks her work, its meditative intensity, and its often dialogic form."
“3 Vocatives” (its three section titles giving three different names for the cricket) and “Praying Mantis” indicate some of the range and challenge—and, I hope, pleasure—of rendering this work in English: the collision of tones, the stark emotional revelations, the searches for “veracity,” the puns and language play that called on me to engage in a corresponding kind of play myself.
Pura López-Colomé is one of Mexico’s most acclaimed contemporary poets. She has published eleven volumes of poetry, most recently Lieder: Cantos al oído, cantos al olvido (2012) and Poemas reunidos: 1985-2012 (2013). In 2007 she was awarded Mexico’s most prestigious poetry prize, the Premio Xavier Villaurrutia. She has also published Spanish translations of work by Samuel Beckett, H. D., Robert Hass, Seamus Heaney, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, and others. She lives with her family in Cuernavaca.
Dan Bellm teaches literary translation in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles and has received a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His translation of Mexican poet Jorge Esquinca, Description of a Flash of Cobalt Blue, appeared from Unicorn Press in 2015. He has also published three books of poetry, most recently Practice (Sixteen Rivers Press), winner of a 2009 California Book Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.
