***
En av de amerikanska litteraturens främsta poeter, Marianne Moore tilldelades Pulitzerpriset 1952 för sin bok "Collected poems". Hennes poesi präglas av språklig precision, angelägna och sonderande beskrivningar av människor, platser, djur och konst. Hennes dikter återspeglar ofta hennes intresse för relationerna mellan det vanliga och det ovanliga, samt förespråkar disciplin i både konst och liv, och förespråkar behärskning, blygsamhet och humor. Källa: Poetry Foundation
Humorn i dikterna är inte alltid så lätt att förstå om man som jag inte har engelska som modersmål. Hennes mest omtalade poem "Poetry" finns också med i boken. Men jag har valt inledningsdikten "The Steeple-Jack" som också hyllats av kritiker och som universitetskurser använder i sina diktanalyser. Den publicerades första gången 1935.
Moore föddes 1887 nära St. Louis, Missouri och växte upp i Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Hon tog en BA i biologi och histologi från Bryn Mawr College; tidiga dikter som "A Jelly-Fish" publicerades först i skolans litterära tidningar.
Moore och hennes mamma flyttade till New York City 1918 och Moore började arbeta på New York Public Library 1921. Hennes första diktsamling, Poems (1921), valdes ut och redigerades av HD (Hilda Doolittle), som samlade arbeten som dök upp i tidskrifter såsom Others, the Egoist och Poetry. Källa: Poetry Foundation
*
The Steeple-Jack, by Marianne Moore
(From Collected poems. London : Faber, 1951.)
Dürer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
with waves as formal as the scales
on a fish.
One by one in two's and three's, the seagulls keep
flying back and forth over the town clock,
or sailing around the lighthouse without moving their
wings —
rising steadily with a slight
quiver of the body — or flock
mewing where
 |
| Arco Valley, by Albrecht Dürer (1505) |
a sea the purple of the peacock's neck is
paled to greenish azure as Dürer changed
the pine green of the Tyrol to peacock blue and guinea
gray. You can see a twenty-five-
pound lobster; and fish nets arranged
to dry. The
whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt
marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the
star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so
much confusion.
A steeple-jack in red, has let
a rope down as a spider spins a thread;
he might be part of a novel, but on the sidewalk a
sign says C. J. Poole, Steeple Jack,
in black and white; and one in red
and white says
Danger. The church portico has four fluted
columns, each a single piece of stone, made
modester by white-wash. This would be a fit haven for
waifs, children, animals, prisoners,
and presidents who have repaid
sin-driven
senators by not thinking about them. One
sees a school-house, a post-office in a
store, fish-houses, hen-houses, a three-masted schooner on
the stocks. The hero, the student,
the steeple-jack, each in his way,
is at home.
It scarcely could be dangerous to be living
in a town like this, of simple people
who have a steeple-jack placing danger signs by the church
when he is gilding the solid -
pointed star, which on a steeple
stands for hope.
***
Jag tycker det är anmärkningsvärt att Pulitzer-priset gavs till en urvalsantologi där majoriteten av dikterna författats mer än tio år tidigare. I och för sig var flera av dem omarbetade av författarinnan, vilket hon regelbundet gjorde.
Mitt andra diktexempel har ett senare datum än föregående. "The mind is an enchanting thing" publicerades första gången 1944.
The mind is an enchanting thing, by Marianne Moore
(From Collected poems. London : Faber, 1951.)
is an enchanted thing
like the glaze on a
katydid-wing
subdivided by sun
till the nettings are legion.
Like Gieseking playing Scarlatti;
like the apteryx-awl
as a beak, or the
kiwi's rain-shawl
of haired feathers, the mind
feeling its way as though blind,
walks along with its eyes on the ground.
It has memory's ear
that can hear without
having to hear.
Like the gyroscope's fall,
truly unequivocal
because trued by regnant certainty,
it is a power of
strong enchantment. It
is like the dove-
neck animated by
sun; it is memory's eye;
it's conscientious inconsistency.
It tears off the veil; tears
the temptation, the
mist the heart wears,
from its eyes, - if the heart
has a face; it takes apart
dejection. It's fire in the dove-neck's
iridescence; in the
inconsistencies
of Scarlatti.
Unconfusion submits
its confusion to proof; it's
not a Herod's oath that cannot change.
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