Men låt oss inte ryckas iväg inför kommande rubriker. Att vara förälder innebär att vara i nuet. I dagens inlägg öppnar vi upp en ny antologi, Motherhood - poems about mothers.
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Boken är uppdelad i sex segment. Eftersom jag redan har presenterat en del dikter på temat mor & baby så hoppar jag över det inledande kapitlet. Texterna jag har valt är istället hämtade från bokens andra del, "mother and daughter".
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Kimiko Hahn föddes i Mount Kisco, New York, och växte upp i Pleasantville , New York och Tokyo, Japan. Hon tog en BA vid University of Iowa och en MA i japansk litteratur vid Columbia University. Hahn är författare till nio diktsamlingar, bland dem: The Artist's Daughter (2002), The Narrow Road to the Interior (2006), Toxic Flora (2010), and Brain Fever (2014). Källa: Poetry Foundation
Something, by Kimiko Hahn
(From Motherhood : poems about mothers. Selected and edited by Carmela Ciuraru. New York : Knopf 2005.)
Resting her on my chest like a sleeping cat
I cannot recall my older daughter so small and new
and fear the memory of this
complete, absolute something will grow away
and fear the hand will never remember
stroking her head as she nursed
or fear I’ll forget her soft cry
when I look up from sleep and see you lift her,
4 am, the curtains blowing in and out of the window
as the whole house breathes.
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Sharon Olds (f. 1942) är en av den samtida poesins ledande röster. Hon har tilldelats flera prestigefyllda utmärkelser, bland annat Pulitzerpriset och National Book Critics Circle Award. Hon är känd för att skriva intensivt personligt, en känslomässigt svidande poesi som åskådliggör familjelivet samt globala politiska händelser. Källa: Poetry Foundation
First Thanksgiving, by Sharon Olds
(From Motherhood : poems about mothers. Selected and edited by Carmela Ciuraru. New York : Knopf 2005.)
When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object,
like a soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, after him, fresh
from the other world—which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing—whirling, over the months,
in a slow blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air—I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.
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Den avslutande dikten är skriven av den just nu främsta afroamerikanska poeten (min åsikt) och hon har redan förekommit ett antal gånger i bloggen.
Rita Dove (f. 1952) var den andra afroamerikanska författaren som erhöll The Pulitzer Prize, 1987. Jag kan väl avslöja att den diktsamlingen finns med på min födelsedagslista.
Genetic expedition, by Rita Dove
(From Motherhood : poems about mothers. Selected and edited by Carmela Ciuraru. New York : Knopf 2005.)
Each evening I see my breasts
slacker, black-tipped
like the heavy plugs on hot water bottles;
each day resembling more the spiked fruits
dangling from natives in the National Geographic
my father forbade us to read.
Each morning I drip coffee onto my blouse
and tear into one slice of German bread,
thin layer of margarine, radishes, the years
spreading across my dark behind, even more
sumptuous after childbirth, the part of me
I swore to relish
always. My child has
her father's hips, his hair
like the miller's daughter, combed gold.
Though her lips are mine, housewives
stare when we cross the parking lot
because of that ghostly profusion.
You can't be cute, she says. You're big.
She's lost her toddler's belly,
that seaworthy prow. She regards me
with serious eyes, power-lit,
atomic gaze
I'm sucked into, sheer through to
the gray brain of sky.
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