The Sea Needs No Ornament / El mar no necesita ornamento

A Bilingual anthology of contemporary Caribbean Women Poets

Loretta Collins Klobah, Maria Grau Perejoan, Loretta Collins Klobah, Maria Grau Perejoan

• Editorial: Peepal Tree Press
• Año: 2020
• ISBN de la versión impresa:
  9781845234737
• ISBN del libro electrónico:
  9781845234744
• Categoría: Letteratura
• Categoría: Poesia

Thirty-three poets from the English and Spanish-speaking Caribbean offer poems in a variety of forms and styles—from free verse, formal, experimental, and exuberant to minimalist— employing a range of language registers, including borrowings from children's ring games to blues rhythms. They speak in equally varied voices: lyrical, ironic, incensed, carnivalesque, meditative, and transgressive. Poems range over all aspects of women's lives, from childhoods of joy or sorrow, relationships with men and women, motherhood, elder years, as part of collectivities or in solitude. Poems focus on the female body as a source of self-knowledge, pleasure, strength, blood, invasion, and sometimes abuse. As Caribbean women, these poets scrutinize their places in the region's history and geography, including the intergenerational impact of migration; they celebrate or cast a critical eye over its spiritual traditions; decry the inequalities of class, race, gender, and sexuality; observe the region's abundance of flora, fauna, and supernatural beings; and lament the catastrophic natural forces of earthquake, flood, and hurricane that have battered its peoples, who yet search for new ways to revive and move forward. As Ilya Kaminsky writes: "This book gives us some of the most passionate and insightful writing around, in any language… as I look at the translated voices here I am both moved and transformed by the ways they seem to address the devastation of the present moment… Spanish-speaking poets are presented with wonderful English-language poets. The result is a first-rate conversation between poetics, a marvel."

Marion Bethel

SUNDAY IN FORT CHARLOTTE

why on earth in heaven’s name

would paradise need a fort?

I didn’t know then of slave-trading forts

in Gorée Gold Coast & Gambia

hell holes and grottos blasted in rock

growing up in Fort Charlotte

a colonial coloured christian child

I was Columbus’ girl all the way

sailing with him from Canary Islands

to Guanahani every night on the Nina

I learned forts on earth were for bonfires

of a straw terrorist Guy Fawkes

protection from pillage piracy and plunder

crisped celebrations of royal family visits

& flying kites where angels dwelled

after a uniform week of red & white tan & brown

green & grey blue & white walking to school

after Saturday’s salt-parched skin on Long Wharf

& sand-filled hair were washed & greased

wooden go-karts & bicycle rims defied death

the handsaw wheezed to a stop & sawdust settled

Mr. Dan stopped bruising his missus

fisherman parked his bicycle

policyman tucked his book on the shelf

the numbers runner put on his Sunday shoes

leading the charge Fr. Holmes a jolly good chap

marched us the Bahamian grenadiers

up & down the church aisles singing

We are soldiers of Christ who is mighty to save

would our saviour ever come?

during the march the most irreverent of prayers

Bonny Read & me firing cannons for heaven

before church ended & rescued us from itself

we sang Hold the fort for I am coming!

the only pirate in sight was holy father himself

later we fluttered & flapped

over Fort Charlotte

high as kites on tails of cotton

gliding with gods dressed in gingham

why on earth for heaven’s sake

would Eden need a fort?

Marion Bethel

DOMINGO EN EL FUERTE CHARLOTTE

¿a santo de qué en el nombre del cielo

podría el paraíso necesitar un fuerte?

entonces no sabía de los fuertes de la trata de esclavos

en Gorée Costa de Oro y Gambia

hoyos infernales y grutas detonados en la roca

al crecer en Fuerte Charlotte

una prieta colonizada cristiana

era completamente la chica de Colón

navegando con él cada noche en la Niña

desde las Islas Canarias hasta Guanahani

aprendí que los fuertes en la tierra eran para hogueras

de Guy Fawkes un terrorista hecho de paja

protección del pillaje la piratería y el saqueo

celebraciones almidonadas de visitas de la familia real

y volar cometas donde moraban ángeles

después de una semana caminando a la escuela de uniforme rojo y blanco

caqui y marrón verde y gris azulado y blanco

después de un sábado de piel reseca de sal...

Índice

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón
• Marion Bethel
• Jacqueline Bishop
• Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
• Malika Booker
• Vahni Capildeo
• Nicole Cecilia Delgado
• Thaís Espaillat
• Sonia Farmer
• Gelsys García Lorenzo
• Millicent A. A. Graham
• Zulema Gutiérrez Lozano
• Khadijah Ibrahiim
• Yaissa Jiménez
• Cindy Jiménez-Vera
• Ann-Margaret Lim
• Hannah Lowe
• Canisia Lubrin
• Shara McCallum
• Jamila Medina Ríos
• Monica Minott
• Mara Pastor
• Esther Phillips
• Jennifer Rahim
• Shivanee Ramlochan
• Legna Rodríguez Iglesias
• Tanya Shirley
• Safiya Sinclair
• Dorothea Smartt
• Karol Starocean
• Ariadna Vásquez Germán
• Donna Aza Weir-Soley
• Tiphanie Yanique
• Notes and Glossary
• Notas y Glosario
• Contributors
• About the Editors and Translators
• Permissions
• Copyright