***
I följande dikt rör sig Denise Levertov runt bilden av kvinnors identitet. Hon ansåg att jämlikhetssträvandena måste innefatta en ny sammansatt bild på kvinnors identitet; å ena sidan den sunda, kärleksfulla och omhändertagande kvinnan och å andra sidan den mystiskt självabsorberande kvinnan med rik fantasi. Det ena behöver inte utesluta det andra, eller hur?!
I dikten gestaltas det i form av Earthwoman och Waterwoman.
The Earthwoman and the Waterwoman, by Denise Levertov (1923-1997)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. Edited by Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Diana O'Hehir. New York : W.W. Norton, 2007.)
The earthwoman by her oven
tends her cakes of good grain.
The waterwoman’s children
are spindle thin.
The earthwoman
has oaktree arms. Her children
full of blood and milk
stamp through the woods shouting.
The waterwoman
sings gay songs in a sad voice
with her moonshine children.
When the earthwoman
has had her fill of the good day
she curls to sleep in her warm hut
a dark fruitcake sleep
but the waterwoman
goes dancing in the misty lit-up town
in dragonfly dresses and blue shoes.
***
 |
| Kathleen Raine |
Nästa dikt är skriven av Kathleen Raine. Hon var en brittisk poet och kritiker. Ellerströms förlag har gett ut en bok med tolkningar av hennes dikter. (Den osedda rosen : dikter / Kathleen Raine ; i tolkning av Lasse Söderberg, Rut Hillarp och Erik Lindegren ; inledning av Lasse Söderberg. 1988)
Kore in Hades, by Kathleen Raine (1908-2003)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. Edited by Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Diana O'Hehir. New York : W.W. Norton, 2007.)
I came, yes, dear, dear
Mother for you I came, so I remember,
To lie in your warm
Bed, to watch the wonder flame:
Burning, golden gentle and bright the light of the living
With you I ran
To see the roadside green
Leaves and small cool bindweed flowers
Living rejoicing to proclaim
We are, we are manifold, in multitude
We come, we are near and far,
Past and future innumerable, we are yours,
We are you. I listened
To the sweet bird whose song is for ever,
I was the little girl of the one mother.
World you wove me to please a child,
Yet its texture was thinner than light, fleeter
Than flame that burned while it seemed
Leaves and flowers and garden world without end.
Bright those faces closed and were over.
Here and now is over, the garden
Lost from time, its sun its moon
Mother, daughter, daughter, mother, never
Is now: there is nothing, nothing for ever.
***
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| Sharon Olds |
En författare som på senare tid tagit sig in bland mina favoriter är Sharon Olds. Jag kan inte tänka mig en bättre avslutning på Motherhood-temat än den här kaxiga slutpunkten från hennes penna.
*
The Language of the Brag, by Sharon Olds (f. 1942)
(From Mothersongs : poems for, by, and about mothers. Edited by Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan Gubar, and Diana O'Hehir. New York : W.W. Norton, 2007.)
I have wanted excellence in the knife-throw,
I have wanted to use my exceptionally strong and accurate arms
and my straight posture and quick electric muscles
to achieve something at the centre of a crowd,
the blade piercing the bark deep,
the haft slowly and heavily vibrating like the cock.
I have wanted some epic use for my excellent body,
some heroism, some American achievement
beyond the ordinary for my extraordinary self,
magnetic and tensile, I have stood by the sandlot
and watched the boys play.
I have wanted courage, I have thought about fire
and the crossing of waterfalls, I have dragged around
my belly big with cowardice and safety,
my stool black with iron pills,
my huge breasts oozing mucus,
my legs swelling, my hands swelling,
my face swelling and darkening, my hair
falling out, my inner sex
stabbed again and again with terrible pain like a knife.
I have lain down.
I have lain down and sweated and shaken
and passed blood and feces and water and
slowly alone in the centre of a circle I have
passed the new person out
and they have lifted the new person free of the act
and wiped the new person free of that
language of blood like praise all over the body.
I have done what you wanted to do, Walt Whitman,
Allen Ginsberg, I have done this thing,
I and the other women this exceptional
act with the exceptional heroic body,
this giving birth, this glistening verb,
and I am putting my proud American boast
right here with the others.
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