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 (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.
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/
