Jonathan Williams
(8 marzo 1929 hasta 16 marzo 2008, EE.UU.) fue un poeta, editor, ensayista y fotógrafo. Se le conoce como el fundador de The Jargon Society, que ha publicado poesía, narrativa experimental, fotografía y arte popular desde 1951.
OBRA:
Jubilant Thicket: New and Selected Poems ( Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
An Ear in Bartram's Tree: Selected Poems 1957-1967 ( Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1969)
META-FOURS
(fragmentos)
fue en un
salón de baile en leadville
colorado en 1883 donde
oscar wilde vio un
cartel que le pareció
la única crítica
de arte razonable
que había encontrado
decía por favor no
disparen al pianista
hace lo que puede
*
cuando el momento de relax
sea el momento oportuno
pulverice 5 tabletas de cialis
entre los huevos revueltos
cierre todas las puertas
baje todas las cortinas
póngase un calzoncillo calvinista
envíenos un informe
*
llamé a mi viejo
profesor de la universidad
en st. albans y le pregunté
como estaba
dijo bien no puedo
ver y no puedo
oir y voy tropezando
como sileno pero
lo que importa es que
todavía puedo acabar
y todavía puedo
hacer que otros acaben
eso es lo que importa
y que más se puede
decir a eso
*
sin duda el mejor faux-epitaphe
pour son sepulchre jamás
escrito es el de john
cheever que dice yo
nunca defraudé a una puta
y nunca me la dieron
por el culo
Jubilant Thicket, New & Selected poems (2005)
versión Patricio Grinberg
A Vulnerary
for Robert Duncan
one comes to language from afar, the ear
fears for its sound-barriers—
but one “comes”; the language “comes” for
The Beckoning Fair One
plant you now, dig you
later, the plaint stirs winter
earth…
air in a hornet’s nest
over the water makes a
solid, six-sided music…
a few utterly quiet scenes, things
are very far away—“form
is emptiness”
comely, comely, love trembles
and the sweet-shrub
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Jonathan Williams, "A Vulnerary" from Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Williams.
On Cowee Ridge
December 13, 1993
John Gordon Boyd
died on the birthday
of three remarkable, and remarkably different, writers:
Heinrich Heine, Kenneth Patchen, Ross McDonald
John, too, was just as remarkable, blessed with an inherent “graciousness”
and with extraordinary eyes & ears…
I think of two texts
on the grievous occasion of his death:
“Religion does not help me.
The faith that others give to what is unseen,
I give to what I can touch, and look at.
My Gods dwell in temples
made with hands.”
— Oscar Wilde, in De Profundis
and two lines in Rainier Maria Rilke,
John’s favorite poet,
that say it all…
Was tun Sie, Gott,
Wenn ich bin stürbe?
“What will you do,
God, when I am dead?”
Jonathan Williams, "On Cowee Ridge" from Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Williams. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Source: Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
Symphony No.3, in D Minor
Thousands lavishing, thousands starving;
intrigues, war, flatteries, envyings,
hypocrisies, lying vanities, hollow amusements,
exhaustion, dissipation, death—and giddiness
and laughter, from the first scene to the last.
—Samuel Palmer, 1858
I. Pan Awakes: Summer Marches In
Pan’s
spring rain
“drives his victims
out to the animals
with whom they become
as one”—
pain and paeans,
hung in the mouth,
to be sung
II. What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me
June 6, 1857, Thoreau in his Journal:
A year is made up of a certain series
and number of sensations and thoughts
which have their language in nature…
Now I am ice, now
I am sorrel.
Or, Clare, 1840, Epping Forest:
I found the poems in the fields
And only wrote them down
and
The book I love is everywhere
And not in idle words
John, claritas tell us the words are not idle,
the syllables are able
to turn plantains into quatrains,
tune raceme to cyme, panicle and umbel to
form corollas in light clusters of tones…
Sam Palmer hit it:
“Milton, by one epithet
draws an oak of the largest girth I ever saw,
‘Pine and monumental oak’:
I have just been trying to draw a large one in
Lullingstone; but the poet’s tree is huger than
any in the park.”
Muse in a meadow, compose in
a mind!
III. What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me
Harris’s Sparrow—
103 species seen
by the Georgia Ornithological Society
in Rabun Gap,
including Harris’s Sparrow, with its
black crown, face, and bib encircling
a pink bill
It was, I think, the third sighting
in Georgia, and I should have been there
instead of reading Clare, listening to
catbirds and worrying about
Turdus migratorious that flew
directly into the Volkswagen and
bounced into a ditch
Friend Robin, I cannot figure it, if I’d
been going 40 you might be
whistling in some grass.
10 tepid people got 10 stale letters
one day earlier,
I cannot be happy
about that.
IV. What the Night Tells Me
the dark drones on
in the southern wheat fields
and the hop flowers
open before the sun’s
beckoning
the end
is ripeness, the wind
rises,
and the dawn says
yes
YES! it says
“yes”
V. What the Morning Bells Tell Me
Sounds, and sweet aires
that give delight
and hurt not—
that, let
Shakespeare’s
delectation
bear us
VI. What Love Tells Me
Anton Bruckner counts the 877th leaf
on a linden tree in the countryside near Wien
and prays:
Dear God, Sweet Jesus,
Save Us, Save Us…
the Light in the Grass,
the Wind on the Hill,
are in my head,
the world cannot be heard
Leaves obliterate
my heart,
we touch each other
far apart…
Let us count
into
the Darkness
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Jonathan Williams, "Symphony No. 3, In D Minor" from Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Williams. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Source: Jubilant Thicket: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
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