As you’ll remember I brought you the work of a good friend Susana Araujo a few months ago. We met at the University of Sussex when we were both researching and writing up our PhDs in American Literature. Susana was writing about Joyce Carol Oates‘s short stories and I was writing about David Mamet’s films. We both were “blessed” with very prolific authors, still producing lots of work, and we had plenty of chance to talk, compare notes, and even taught some film courses together. Since completing her PhD Susana has gone back to Portugal and is now teaching at the University of Lisbon. We also shared our love of writing and Susana has recently published a collection of poems, Dívida Soberana. She was very kind and sent me a copy and also agreed to feature some of her poems in my blog. Although her collection is mostly in Portuguese, part 3 ‘Global Warming’ contains her own translation of some of her poems, offering a bilingual rendering in Portuguese and English. A very socially conscious collection, dealing with current situation and ever actual, I could not resist but bring you another of her poems.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

And I add some information of where to buy her book at the end. Don’t forget to click!

Happy Meal logo, English

Happy Meal logo, English (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

McLANCHE FELIZ

Será o acossar de cada palavra sintoma

de fome? Depois de teres sorvido o líquido

de todo o alfabeto e ingerido fonemas tão

garridos como o velho palhaço do McDonalds

Abriste com mãos limpas a porta do templo,

penetras o mistério das sementes de sésamo

e entre famílias inteiras: nativas e estrangeiras

sentas-te e recitas o epinício da congregação

na esperança que o teu pedido (batido de

percepções) não aborte

Pois bem. Se comes o hambúrguer em paz

é porque, efectivamente, carnes orgânicas

não salvam um planeta de si próprio

nem aliviam a dor de nenhum poeta.

HAPPY MEAL

Is the hunting for each word a symptom

of hunger? After you sipped the liquid

of all the alphabet and ingested phonemes

as garish as McDonald’s old clown

You opened the doors of the temple with

clean hands, penetrated the mystery of

sesame seeds and among entire families:

native and foreign, you sit and recite the hymn

of the congregation in the hope that your order

(a milkshake of perceptions) shall not abort

Well then. If you eat your burger in peace

it is because, in reality, organic meat

does not save a planet from itself, nor

does it ease a poet’s pain.

Here is he link! Don’t forget to click!

Check www.amariposa.net to order some copies.

And here I leave you a link to the previous post. Have a look, Susana’s poems should not be missed!

https://olganm.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/susana-araujos-divida-soberana/