Este mes hemos seleccionado a Ted Kooser, poeta norteamericano que fue poet laureat entre los años 2004 a 2006.
Como muestra de su obra dos poemas: A letter in October y A Room in the past.
A Letter in October BY TED KOOSER
Dawn comes later and later now,
and I, who only a month ago
could sit with coffee every morning
watching the light walk down the hill
to the edge of the pond and place
a doe there, shyly drinking,
then see the light step out upon
the water, sowing reflections
to either side—a garden
of trees that grew as if by magic—
now see no more than my face,
mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,
startled by time. While I slept,
night in its thick winter jacket
bridled the doe with a twist
of wet leaves and led her away,
then brought its black horse with harness
that creaked like a cricket, and turned
the water garden under. I woke,
and at the waiting window found
the curtains open to my open face;
beyond me, darkness. And I,
who only wished to keep looking out,
must now keep looking in.
Una carta en octubre (traducción libre al español)
El amanecer llega cada vez más tarde ahora,
Y yo, quien solamente hace un mes
pude sentarme con un café cada mañana
mirando la luz caminar en descenso la colina
al borde del estanque y ponerse
allí sobre un conejo, bebiendo tímidamente,
entonces ver el paso de la luz hacia fuera
del agua, mostrando reflejos,
al otro lado – un jardín
de árboles que credía como por magia –
ahora no ver más que mi cara,
reflejada en la oscuridad, pálida y extraña,
sorprendida por el tiempo. Mientras yo dormía,
la noche en su abrigo invernal
frenaba al conejo con una torsión
de horas mojadas y lo llevaba lejos,
entondes trajo su caballo negro con arnés
que crujió como un grillo, y giró
por el agua del jardín de abajo. Desperté
y en la ventana de espera encontré
las cortinas abiertas a mi propia cara,
más allá de mi, oscuridad, y yo,
que solo deseaba mantenerme mirando hacia fuera,
debía ahora seguir mirando dentro.
A Room in the Past BY TED KOOSER
It’s a kitchen. Its curtains fill
with a morning light so bright
you can’t see beyond its windows
into the afternoon. A kitchen
falling through time with its things
in their places, the dishes jingling
up in the cupboard, the bucket
of drinking water rippled as if
a truck had just gone past, but that truck
was thirty years. No one’s at home
in this room. Its counter is wiped,
and the dishrag hangs from its nail,
a dry leaf. In housedresses of mist,
blue aprons of rain, my grandmother
moved through this life like a ghost,
and when she had finished her years,
she put them all back in their places
and wiped out the sink, turning her back
on the rest of us, forever.
Una habitación en el pasado: (traducción libre al español).
Es una cocina. Sus cortinas llenas
con una luz matinal tan brillante
que no puedes mirar más allá de sus ventanas
hacia el atardecer. Una cocina
callendo a través del tiempo con sus cosas
en sus sitios, los platos tintineando
en el armario, el cubo
de agua potable se balanceaba como si
un camión acabase de pasar, pero ese camión
fue hace treinta años. No hay nadie en casa,
en esa habitación. Su contador se secó
y el trapo de los platos cuelga de su clavo,
una hoja seca. En batas de niebla
se movía por esta vida como un fantasma,
y cuando había finalizado sus años,
los puso todos de vuelta a sus sitios.
Y limpió el fregadero, volviendo la espalda
al resto de nosotros, para siempre.
Ted Kooser (born 25 April 1939) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.
Biography
Born in Ames, Iowa, in 1939, Kooser earned a BS at Iowa State University in 1962 and the MA at the University of Nebraska in 1968. He is the author of twelve collections of poetry. He is former vice-president of Lincoln Benefit Life, an insurance company, and lives on land near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He owned a book publishing company, Windflower. He teaches as a Visiting Professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is married to Kathleen Rutledge, former editor of theLincoln Journal Star.
Caree
On August 12, 2004, he was named Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Librarian of Congress to serve a term from October 2004 through May 2005. In April 2005, Ted Kooser was appointed to serve a second term as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. During that same week Kooser received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book «Delights and Shadows»[3] (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).
Kooser lives in Garland, Nebraska, and much of his work focuses on the Great Plains. Like Wallace Stevens, Kooser spent much of his working years as an executive in theinsurance industry, although Kooser sardonically noted in an interview with the Washington Post that Stevens had far more time to write at work than he ever did. Kooser has won two NEA Literary Fellowships (in 1976 and 1984), the Pushcart Prize, the Nebraska Book Awards for Poetry (2001) and Nonfiction (2004), the Stanley Kunitz Prize (1984), theJames Boatwright Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (2005).
He hosts the newspaper project «American Life in Poetry.»
Bibliography
Books
• Kooser, Ted (1969). Official entry blank.
• Grass County. (1971).
• Twenty Poems. (1973).
• A Local Habitation and a Name. (1974).
• Not Coming to Be Barked At. (1976).
• Sure Signs: New and Selected Poems. (1980).
• One World at a Time. (1985).
• The Blizzard Voices (1986).
• Weather Central. (1994).
• A Book of Things. (1995).
• Riding with Colonel Carter. (1999).
• Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison. (2001).
• Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry. (with Jim Harrison) (Copper Canyon Press, 2003).
• Delights and Shadows. (Copper Canyon Press, 2004)
• Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2004)
• Flying At Night : Poems 1965-1985 (2005)
• Lights on a Ground of Darkness: an evocation of place and time. (2005).
• The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice For Beginning Poets (2005).
• Valentines (2008)
• Splitting an Order (2014)
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