Minnie Bruce Pratt (f. 1946) är en av Alabamas mest kända samtida poeter. Hon är också allmänt erkänd som en essäist, politisk aktivist och universitetspedagog. Hennes böcker är självbiografiska, samtidigt som de utforskar hennes ursprung i Black Belt-regionen och hennes motståndskraft mot de traditionella rollerna för sydstatskvinnor. De har också en politisk agenda, det kan gälla kön och könsidentitet, rasdiskriminering eller kapitalism. Källa: Encyclopedia of Alabama
Pratt gifte sig med poeten Marvin E. Weaver II och bodde med honom och deras två söner i Fayetteville, North Carolina. Pratt hade slutat att skriva efter giftermålet, men hon återvände till poesin 1975 efter att hon kom ut som lesbisk. När Pratt och hennes man skilde sig senare samma år förlorade hon vårdnaden om sina barn. Det beslutet grundade sig på statens lag "Crime against nature" som kriminaliserade homosexuella handlingar, en upplevelse som hon senare utforskade på djupet i sin poesi. I synnerhet i kvällens bok som bär titeln Crime against nature.
Justice, come down; by Minnie Bruce Pratt
(from Crime against nature. Ithaca, N.Y. : Firebrand Books, 1990.)
A huge sound waits, bound in the ice,
in the icicle roots, in the buds of snow
on fir branches, in the falling silence
of snow, glittering in the sun, brilliant
as a swarm of gnats, nothing but hovering
wings at midday. With the sun comes noise.
Tongues of ice break free, fall, shatter,
splinter, speak. If I could write the words.
Simple, like turning a page, to say Write
what happened, but this means a return
to the cold place where I am being punished.
Alone to the stony circle where I am frozen,
the empty space, children, mother, father gone,
lover gone away. There grief still sits
and waits, grim, numb, keeping company with
anger. I can smell my anger like sulfur-
struck matches. I wanted what had happened
to be a wall to burn, a window to smash.
At my fist the pieces would sparkle and fall.
All would be changed. I would not be alone.
Instead I have told my story over and over
at parties, on the edge of meetings, my life
clenched in my fist, my eyes brittle as glass.
Ashamed, people turned their faces away
from the woman ranting, asking: Justice,
stretch out your hand. Come down, glittering,
from where you have hidden yourself away.
***
I boken vittnar hennes dikter om kampen för att bevara sin relation till barnen, men diktsamlingen visar också genom kronologiska avbrott och tvära kast vilken intensiv smärta som ligger bakom texterna.
Shame (first part), by Minnie Bruce Pratt
(from Crime against nature. Ithaca, N.Y. : Firebrand Books, 1990.)
1.
I ask for justice but do not release
myself. Do I think I was wrong? Yes.
Of course. Was wrong. Am wrong. Can
justify everything except their pain.
Even now their cries rattle in my ears
like icy winds pierce in cold weather.
Even now a tenderness from their cries.
The past repeats in fragments: What I
see is everybody watching, me included,
as a selfish woman leaves her children,
two small boys hardly more than babies.
Though I say he took them, and my theories
explain power, how he thought he'd force
me to choose, me or them, her or them.
myself. Do I think I was wrong? Yes.
Of course. Was wrong. Am wrong. Can
justify everything except their pain.
Even now their cries rattle in my ears
like icy winds pierce in cold weather.
Even now a tenderness from their cries.
The past repeats in fragments: What I
see is everybody watching, me included,
as a selfish woman leaves her children,
two small boys hardly more than babies.
Though I say he took them, and my theories
explain power, how he thought he'd force
me to choose, me or them, her or them.
***
Crime against Nature tilldelades the Lamont Poetry award, och juryn ur The Academy of American Poets gav följande motivering till sitt val:
"In spare and forceful language Minnie Bruce Pratt tells a moving story of loss and recuperation. . . . She makes it plain, in this masterful sequence of poems, that the real crime against nature is violence and oppression."
Crime against nature (excerpt), by Minnie Bruce Pratt
(from Crime against nature. Ithaca, N.Y. : Firebrand Books, 1990.)
5.
Last time we were together we went down to the river,
the boys and I, wading. In the rocks they saw a yellow-striped snake, with a silver fish crossways in its mouth,
just another one of the beautiful terrors of nature,
how one thing can turn into another without warning.
the boys and I, wading. In the rocks they saw a yellow-striped snake, with a silver fish crossways in its mouth,
just another one of the beautiful terrors of nature,
how one thing can turn into another without warning.
When I open my mouth, some people hear snakes slide
out, whispering, to poison my sons' lives. Some fear
I'll turn them into queers, into women, a quick reverse
of uterine fate. It took only that original slightest
touch of Y, of androgen, to alter them from girls.
Some fear I've crossed over into capable power
and I'm taking my children with me. My body a snaky
rope, with its twirl, loop, spin, falling escape,
falling, altered, woman to man and back again, animal
to human: And what are the implications for the political
system of boy children who watched me like a magic
trick, like I had a key to the locked-room mystery?
(Will they lose all respect for national boundaries,
their father, science, or private property?)
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