miércoles, 9 de julio de 2014

ANTIGONE KEFALA [12.234] Poeta de Australia


Antigone Kefala 

Nació en 1935 en Braila, Rumania, de padres griegos. Después de la guerra su familia regresó a Grecia, antes de emigrar a Nueva Zelanda en 1951. Se graduó con una licenciatura en Artes de la Universidad de Victoria, Wellington, y, posteriormente, completó una maestría en 1960. A principios de 1960 se mudó a Nueva Gales del Sur, trabajando primero como profesora de Inglés como segunda lengua, y, posteriormente, como administradora de la Universidad de Nueva Gales del Sur, y como administradora de artes  del Consejo de Australia.

Kefala comenzó a publicar su poesía en revistas literarias de Australia a principios de 1960, y su primer libro The Alien, apareció en 1973. Su poesía a menudo gira en torno a la experiencia de la alienación y la diferencia, y los problemas del lenguaje y significado, ha sido ampliamente reconocida como una voz importante en la experiencia de los inmigrantes en la Australia moderna. Además de poesía, ha escrito historias cortas de ficción, novelas cortas y novelas - incluyendo The Island (1984) -, así como ensayos y obras autobiográficas, que incluyen una selección de sus diarios: Sydney Journals, 1970-2000 (2008).

Poesía Colecciones

The Alien (St Lucia, Qld: Makar Press, 1973).
Thirsty Weather (Melbourne: Outback Press, 1978).
European Notebook (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1988).
Absence: New and Selected Poems (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1992).
Poems (Melbourne: Owl Publishing, 2000).



El regreso

Él apareció en el balcón
después de la victoria,
con su nueva esposa, joven y rubia.

Él alto y muy delgado, en gris,
su cabeza, una calavera apenas cubierta
por algunas parchaduras.

Él miraba la multitud,
inestable sobre sus pies y vago,
enviándoles torpes besos
con su huesuda mano, la mano de su mujer
sobre su hombro, guiándolo.

Cuando habló su voz aullaba, raspando
una sobreusada retórica de su pasado
en la cual todavía creía.





Coming Home

What if
getting out of the bus
in these abandoned suburbs
pale under the street lights,
what if, as we stepped down
we forgot who we are
became lost in this absence
emptied of memory
we, the only witness of ourselves
before whom
shall the drama be enacted?







The Place

I

The place was small, full of hills,
palm trees, almond trees, oleanders,
glass flowers falling from the sky
on the ascetic hills, the bare houses.
The ancients had been there looking for copper.

Around the courtyards in the dusk
grey men in army coats
followed the leader round the ramparts.
At night after the toll, the three
would come dressed up to count the souls.

We waited there two summers.
Tall birds with upturned beaks
picked us like grain.
We moved in herds
waited with patience to be fed
drank at the water places
between the walls our necks grew longer
stretching for the night.


II

The ships, we heard, had sunk
weighed with the charity of the new world
that kept on feeding us with toys,
letters in foreign tongues
that we could not decipher.

We gave them to our silent children, onyx-eyed,
brought up on wakes for spirits that had gone
and knew each drop that added the ingredients
to the day in the appointed measure.

For them, we looked at the cross roads
to find only the sound of running water
and the dusk settling in plum coloured
over the hills
the coolness of the evening full of promise.


III

They came in spring with the great winds
the buyers
walked through the gates in groups
their marrow discoloured
their eyes ashes
gestures full of charity.

Bidders, in markets for flesh
untouched by the taste of the coffee
and the scent of the water
on the hot stones.


IV

We travelled in old ships
with small decaying hearts
rode on the giant beast
uncertain
remembered other voyages
and the black depths
each day we feasted on the past
friends watching over
the furniture of generations
dolphins no longer followed us
we were in alien waters.







Family

The garden full of trees in bloom
spring scents, angelica, birds
crying in the still, clean light.

In the dark house behind the shutters
they were waiting
with the bread and the olives.
Marble dusted, ancient faces
with eroded eyes,
shell eyes of statues bleached by time.

At night, their shadows
on the white washed walls
breathing in silence
the scent of the white lilies
blooming in the moonlight
as if consumed with longing.







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