p.d.s. (nina în the guardian)

cea mai potrivită zi de citit ziare şi de băut cafea mi se pare sâmbăta. sâmbăta nu trebuie să alergi nicăieri, aşa că cititul poate fi întins până spre prânz. sari din link în link, mai o biografie nouă a ninei simone (pe care tre să pun mâna neapărat!), mai o iubire necondiţionată, mai un glucksmann despre revoluţia filosofică de catifea, mai un godard şi cele 43 de secrete ale sale, mai o adaptare teatrală a lui arthur şi george, mai un knut (ursul polar vedetă al germaniei) şi nenorociţii aia de la peta care nu-l lasă să se pupe cu o soră îndepărtată, mai un trib evreiesc din zimbabwe, înghiţi literele pe îndelete, nu te grăbeşte nimeni, deschizi zece ferestre, şi una zice aşa: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/13/carol-ann-duffy-poems-ageing. şoc: the guardian a aflat de p.d.s.!!! azi, sâmbătă, 13 martie, the guardian publică un festin poetic excepţional, invitând câţiva "senior British poets" să scrie câte un poem despre bătrâneţe. e inutil să vă spun cam cât de bune sunt mai toate poemele de-acolo, pentru că o să vedeţi şi singuri. (paranteză. cum ar fi ca evenimentu zilei, să zicem, să publice într-o sâmbătă cinci poeme de amor inedite scrise de - tineri sau mai puţin tineri - poeţi români? deci, cum ar fi?) surpriza cea mai mare a venit când am ajuns la al treilea poem:

What I Regret
By Nina Cassian

. . . never having heard the voice of the Dodo bird . . .
. . . never having smelled the Japanese cherry trees . . .
. . . never having punished the lovers and friends that
deserted me . . .
. . . never having asked for honours that I deserved . . .
. . . never having composed a Mozart sonata . . .
. . . never having realised that I'd live long enough to
regret all the above . . .
. . . and much, much more . . .

Born in 1924, Cassian is a Romanian poet, composer, journalist, film critic and translator. She has published more than 50 books of her own poetry. Having fled the Ceausescu regime, she was granted asylum in the US and now lives in New York.

well, nina cassian nu e deloc poet britanic, ceea ce face ca prezenţa ei în mica antologie din the guardian să fie cu atât mai specială.
mi-au mai plăcut, pentru infinita delicateţe cu care-şi întreţin tristeţile:

Old Flame
By Linda Chase

He turns my hand in his hand
as if to catch the light,
separating my fingers
to see my rings, one by one.
Questions and answers follow –
country, stones, when, from whom
and then my other hand
because this ritual has been
going on for fifty years
and there are no surprises,
as he counts the parts of me
and the decorations I choose.

But today I wear a bracelet
he has never seen before,
knowing that it's to his taste,
that it will spark new attention
beyond his routine inspection.
Between the larger stones,
sit dashes of orange abalone,
keeping spaces in between
irregular chunks of turquoise.
He fingers them around my wrist
and I'm a girl again, fluttering
through her jewellery and her life.

şi

Mrs Baldwin
By Fleur Adcock

And then there's the one about the old woman
who very apologetically asks the way
to Church Lane, adding "I ought to know:
I've lived there since the war". So you go with her.

This comes with variations, usually leading
(via a list of demented ancestors)
to calculations of how much time you've got
before you're asking the way to your own house.

But it's not so often that you find the one
about how, whenever you hear of someone
diagnosed with cancer, you have to hide
that muffled pang that clutched you, at fifteen,
when you saw Pauline Edwards holding hands
with the boy from the Social Club you'd always
fancied.

şi

Not for Me a Youngman's Death
By Roger McGough

Not for me a youngman's death
Not a car crash, whiplash
John Doe, DOA at A&E kind of death.
Not a gun in hand, in a far off land
IED at the roadside death

Not a slow-fade, razor blade
bloodbath in the bath, death.
Jump under a train, Kurt Cobain
bullet in the brain, death

Not a horse-riding paragliding
mountain climbing fall, death.
Motorcycle into an old stone wall
you know the kind of death, death

My nights are rarely unruly. My days
of allnight parties are over, well and truly.
No mistresses no red sports cars
no shady deals no gangland bars
no drugs no fags no rock'n'roll
Time alone has taken its toll

Not for me a youngman's death
Not a domestic brawl, blood in the hall
knife in the chest, death.
Not a drunken binge, dirty syringe
"What a waste of a life" death.

The greyness of the sky is streaked
Along its width with shades of red;
The pity of the world has leaked
But who are these whose hands have bled?

de fapt, mi-au plăcut toate şi de-abia aştept să mi le scot luni la imprimantă şi să le pun în cutia mea cu delicii. poemele despre bătrâneţe m-au înduioşat întotdeauna mai mult decât trebuie, am avut mereu impresia că mă-nţeleg mai bine cu ele (dintr-un soi de datorie care-mi tot striga în urechi că trebuie să fiu pregătită pentru ce-i mai rău) decât cu "on n'est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans" al lui rimbaud. de altfel, vă mai amintiţi, poate, ce cred eu despre toate astea.

în orice caz, ce sâmbătă minunată. şi ce mult mi-ar plăcea s-o cunosc pe dna. cassian.