SARAH ARVIO [10.334]

Sarah Arvio 

(Filadelfia, EE.UU., 1954) 

Poeta. Ha vivido en Nueva York, París, Caracas, Roma y México. Durante muchos años, fue traductora para las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York y Suiza, y recientemente ha enseñado la poesía en Princeton.

      Sus poemas son ampliamente publicados en revistas como The New Yorker, The New Republic, Literary Imagination, Boston Review, The Kenyon Review and Poetry Kanto and in many online reviews.

        Compositores han puesto sus poemas a la música: Miriama Young set “Cote d’Azur” as “Inner Voices of Blue”; Steve Burke set “Armor” for the song cycle “Skin”; and William Bolcom set “Chagrin” for the song cycle “The Hawthorn Tree.”

Anthologies:

Women’s Work  “Starlings” 

The KGB Bar Book of Poems  “Mirrors”

The Best American Erotic Poems: from 1800 to the Present   “Mirrors”

The Best American Poetry 1998  “from Visits from the Seventh”

¿Llamarías a esto guerra o riña?

Entonces hablé dentro en la espiral de tu oreja

No es esto amor oh mi brujo mi señor

¿Llamarías a esto guerra o riña?

Todas estas arduas palabras se escucharon en mis oídos

Nuestra palabra acumulada es más dura que un hacha

Más pesada que un corazón sobre un camino de guerra

No dije que tú me emputecieras no nada de eso

Puedo oírte tosiendo en el amor guerra

La deformación de nuestras palabras en el campo de guerra

Cómo me tendrías si yo te tuviera

Cómo me dejarías si yo te dejara

Tocando mi cabeza y mi sien

Manoseando mi copete mientras tocas mi piel

Me pregunto si un cuchicheo es justificado

¿Me escucharás si hablo en tonos bajos?

Un grito y llanto ¿me escucharás si grito?

aquí aquí quiero decir me tendrás aquí

ensartando el espacio con el sonido de la palabra

Con el amor acumulado oído en tu oreja

esto es amor ¿no lo es? una guerra en tu oreja

amor amor una palabra en la espiral de tu oreja

_____

Traducción de Víctor Manuel Mendiola

WOOD

The last thing I ever wanted was to

write again about grief did you think I

would your grief this time not mine oh good

grief enough is enough in my life that is

enough was enough I had all those

grievances all those griefs all engraved

into the wood of my soul but would you

believe it the wood healed I grew up and

grew out and would you believe it I found

your old woody heart sprouting I thought

good new growth good new luxuriant green

leaves leaves on their woody stalks and I said

I’ll stake my life on this old stick I’ll stick

and we talked into the morning and night

and laughed green leaves and sometimes a flower

oh bower of good new love I would have it

I would bow to the new and the green

and wouldn’t you know it you were a stick

yes I know a good stick so often and then

a stick in my ribs in my heart your old

dark wood your old dark gnarled stalk

sprouting havoc and now I have grief again

and now I’ve stood for what I never should

green leaves of morning dark leaves of night

OETRYNECK

That isn’t done Grabbing your girlfriend’s neck

isn’t done I mean it is done by god

often enough but not when I’m the girl

or the friend I love you with all my soul

and all my I don’t know what else to say

my friendliness and my girlishness

but by god my friend do not grab my neck

Neck with me nestle your neck into mine

I’ve been watching the necks of the geese

my geese our geese flying over our heads

and I’ve said goose wander in my chamber

You goose don’t be a gander and don’t be

a geek Be a Greek be a pagan be

a lover of life of me of my neck

Grab my neck my shoulder or my breast

but sweetly if you must my sweet goose

or I’ll call the police Not that the Greeks

were any better at love than we are

always stabbing at their men and their gods

but my god better than the Romans

and their strikes at the neck their split necks

All they did was say do not do do not

do that and thwack off with their head

So if you ask me what Greek is I say

give me a Greek over a Roman

Oh romance romance it’s Greek to me

it was Greek to the Romans and to me

to my roaming heart and my Grecian

gods to my friends and my gods and you

you my silly goose and my strangler

Matter

I was what mattered in the end. Or if I didn't matter then nothing mattered, and if I mattered, well then all things did. 

O miracles and molecules, dust, rust. It was always a matter of matter. It might be meat or else it might be love 

(if I was meat, if I was fit to eat). What had never been matter would never matter: you might say this was a moot point. 

Clay and dust, ash and mud and mist and rust, blood-orange sunsets and turning maples, apples and cherries, sticks and trash and dust, 

rumpled papers blowing across a street (dead letters sent to him that lives away). There was life, there was loss, there was no such 

thing as loss -- there was nothing that wasn't both life and loss. No, it had to be said, in questions of matter, nothing was lost. 

It might be a matter of carnal love. This was textual and material, and for once the facts-of-the-matter were 

both heartfelt and matter-of-fact. (Oh, matter of course was always the mother.) These were the facts of life, this was my life, 

and there I was, right at the heart of it my own heart -- at the heart-of-the-matter. And did I matter now or in the end? 

O mother, maintainer and measurer, mud and fruit of the heart, meat of the heart, the question might be asked, what was the end.