***
Tria Carmina
med
Carol Ann Duffy
(f. 1955)
***
I ett tidigare Tria Carmina behandlade jag Wisława Szymborska vars produktion är ganska liten. Kvällens författare har en lång rad av publikationer bakom sig. Hon har skrivit poesi, essäer och teaterpjäser. Hon har redigerat antologier och gett ut samarbetsprojekt med andra författare. Hon har skrivit barnpoesi och bilderböcker, och hon har omarbetat kända berättelser till korta prosadikter.
Debutboken vill hon inte kännas vid. Nästa utgivning var ett samarbete med Adrian Henri. Hennes tredje bok blev den korta skriften Fifth last song (1982), men den har jag inte fått tag i. Så jag hoppar fram till hennes genombrott, Standing female nude (1985), och ger er en sonett.
*
Liverpool echo, by Carol Ann Duffy
(from Standing female nude. London : Anvil Press Poetry, 1985.)
Pat Hodges kissed you once, although quite shy,
In sixty-two. Small crowds in Mathew Street
Endure rain for the echo of a beat,
As if nostalgia means you did not die.
Inside phone-booth loveless ladies cry
On Merseyside. Their faces show defeat.
An ancient jukebox blares out Ain’t She Sweet
In Liverpool, which cannot say goodbye.
Here everybody has an anecdote
Of how they met you, were the best of mates.
The seagulls circle round a ferry-boat
 |
| The Cavern Club, Liverpool |
Out on the river, where it’s getting late.
Like litter on the water, people float
Outside the Cavern in the rain. And wait.
***
Hennes stil gavs följande karakteristik av Charlotte Mendelson i The Observer:
"Duffy's work explores both everyday experience and the rich fantasy life of herself and others. In dramatising scenes from childhood, adolescence, and adult life, she discovers moments of consolation through love, memory, and language."
Nästa exempel kommer från den kritikerrosade samlingen Mean Time (1993), för vilken hon tilldelades The Whitbread Poetry Award.
Close, by Carol Ann Duffy
(from Mean Time. London : Anvil Press Poetry, 1993.)
Lock the door. In the dark journey of our night
two childhoods stand in the corner of the bedroom
watching the way we take each other to bits
to stare at our heart. I hear a story
told in sleep in a lost accent. You know the truth.
Undress. A suitcase crammed with secrets
bursts in the wardrobe at the foot of the bed.
Dress again. Undress. You have me like a drawing,
erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.
The name of a country written in red on my palm,
Unreadable. I tell myself where I live now,
but you move in close till I shake, homeless,
further than that. A coin falls from the bedside table,
spinning its heads and tails. How the hell
can I win. How can I lose. Tell me again.
Love won't give in. It makes a hired room tremble
with the pity of bells, a cigarette smoke itself
next to a full glass of wine, time ache
into space, space, wants no more talk. Now
it has me where I want me, now you, you do.
Put out the light. Years stand outside on the street
looking up to an open window, black as our mouth
which utters its tuneless song. The ghosts of ourselves,
behind and before us, throng in a mirror, blind,
laughing and weeping. They know who we are.
***
Redan 1999 var hon aktuell för positionen som britternas Poet Laureate. Den gången fick hon stå tillbaka för Andrew Motion. Tio år senare blev det hennes tur.
Hon har startat flera olika projekt under sin tid som Laureate men hon blir nog ändå bäst ihågkommen för de specialbeställda texter som hon producerat. Jag tänker bl.a. på David Beckhams skadefrånvaro vid VM 2010, Prins Williams bröllop 2011 (en 46-radig dikt!!), samt dikten hon skrev efter folkomröstningen om Skottlands självständighet. Den har jag tidigare publicerat i bloggen (länk). Hon är ju för övrigt född i Glasgow.
Hon har på senare år omarbetat berättelser till korta prosadikter. En kom lagom till julhögtiden förra året. Den handlar om några pojkars jakt på gärdsmygen och hennes ägg.
The wren boys (extract), by Carol Ann Duffy
(from The wren boys. London : Picador, 2015.)
(...)
Over the wall, over the field, was the wood
to where the Wren-Boys stomped in a singing gang:
We’ll chase him from bush to bush
and from tree to tree. One had a fiddle,
one had a penny-whistle, another a drum,
one had thirty feathers poked in his hat.
So through the holly, the hazel, the ash,
the brackeny floor, they hunted the wren.
Five hours in, they had startled a fox
which ran like the hounds; had bagged a nest
with five blue unhatched eggs; scarpered
from a cache of poteen stashed in an oak.
On a twig, a robin watched them go,
safe in its myth. It had started to snow
and the boots of the boys blotted the page of the field
as they made for the margins – the ditches and hedgerows.
(...)
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