viernes, 11 de enero de 2013

RICHARD BLANCO POETA DE ORIGEN HISPANO ESCOGIDO POR EL PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS PARA RECITAR POEMA



El Presidente de los Estados Unidos Barack H. Obama ha escogido a Richard Blanco poeta de padres cubanos pero que nació y creció en España para recitar uno de sus poemas en la Toma Presidencial que marca un hito histórico ya que es la primera vez que esto ocurre y para poner el tema más interesante el Poeta quién reside en Estados Unidos y publica en inglés mezclándolo con el español ganador de múltiples reconocimientos se ha declarado abiertamente Gay o sea homosexual algo digno de respetar porqué nos muestra que se han roto los paradigmas en los Estados Unidos y el mundo.

Según la página oficial del autor Richard Blanco fue hecho en Cuba ensamblado en España e importado a los Estados Unidos interesante mezcla ¿no creen ustedes?

City of a Hundred Fires es uno de sus poemarios más conocidos y galardonados fue su primer libro ganador de importantes premios como: Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from The University of Pittsburgh Press. Su segundo libro Directions to the Beach of the Dead ganó The Bayond Margins Award from the Pen American Center.

Sin duda alguna un poeta completo en todo sentido de la palabra y por algo fue escogido por Barack Obama para recitar un poema todavía inédito en la Toma de Posesión este 20 de enero del 2013 en los Estados Unidos un gran orgullo para los hispanos y por ser abierto en exponer su homosexualidad al mundo lo que demuestra que querer es poder.

Les dejo parte de su obra para que conozcamos un poco más de quién es Richard Blanco.

AMÉRICA


I.

Although Tía Miriam boasted she discovered

at least half-a-dozen uses for peanut butter--

topping for guava shells in syrup,

butter substitute for Cuban toast,

hair conditioner and relaxer--

Mamà never knew what to make

of the monthly five-pound jars

handed out by the immigration department

until my friend, Jeff, mentioned jelly.

II.

There was always pork though,

for every birthday and wedding,

whole ones on Christmas and New Year's Eves,

even on Thanksgiving Day--pork,

fried, broiled or crispy skin roasted--

as well as cauldrons of black beans,

fried plantain chips and yuca con mojito.

These items required a special visit

to Antonio's Mercado on the corner of 8th street

where men in guayaberas stood in senate

blaming Kennedy for everything--"Ese hijo de puta!"

the bile of Cuban coffee and cigar residue

filling the creases of their wrinkled lips;

clinging to one another's lies of lost wealth,

ashamed and empty as hollow trees.

III.

By seven I had grown suspicious--we were still here.

Overheard conversations about returning

had grown wistful and less frequent.

I spoke English; my parent's didn't.

We didn't live in a two story house

with a maid or a wood panel station wagon

nor vacation camping in Colorado.

None of the girls had hair of gold;

none of my brothers or cousins

were named Greg, Peter, or Marsha;

we were not the Brady Bunch.

None of the black and white characters

on Donna Reed or on Dick Van Dyke Show

were named Guadalupe, Lázaro, or Mercedes.

Patty Duke's family wasn't like us either--

they didn't have pork on Thanksgiving,

they ate turkey with cranberry sauce;

they didn't have yuca, they had yams

like the dittos of Pilgrims I colored in class.

IV.

A week before Thanksgiving

I explained to my abuelita

about the Indians and the Mayflower,

how Lincoln set the slaves free;

I explained to my parents about

the purple mountain's majesty,

"one if by land, two if by sea"

the cherry tree, the tea party,

the amber waves of grain,

the "masses yearning to be free"

liberty and justice for all, until

finally they agreed:

this Thanksgiving we would have turkey,

as well as pork.

V.

Abuelita prepared the poor fowl

as if committing an act of treason,

faking her enthusiasm for my sake.

Mamà set a frozen pumpkin pie in the oven

and prepared candied yams following instructions

I translated from the marshmallow bag.

The table was arrayed with gladiolus,

the plattered turkey loomed at the center

on plastic silver from Woolworths.

Everyone sat in green velvet chairs

we had upholstered with clear vinyl,

except Tío Carlos and Toti, seated

in the folding chairs from the Salvation Army.

I uttered a bilingual blessing

and the turkey was passed around

like a game of Russian Roulette.

"DRY", Tío Berto complained, and proceeded

to drown the lean slices with pork fat drippings

and cranberry jelly--"esa mierda roja," he called it.

Faces fell when Mamá presented her ochre pie--

pumpkin was a home remedy for ulcers, not a dessert.

Tía María made three rounds of Cuban coffee

then abuelo and Pepe cleared the living room furniture,

put on a Celia Cruz LP and the entire family

began to merengue over the linoleum of our apartment,

sweating rum and coffee until they remembered--

it was 1970 and 46 degrees--

in América.

After repositioning the furniture,

an appropriate darkness filled the room.

Tío Berto was the last to leave.

Este poema pertenece a su libro: City of a Hundred Fires

UNSPOKEN ELEGY FOR TÍA CUCHA


I arrive with a box of pastelitos,

a dozen red carnations, and a handful

of memories at her door: the half-moons

of her French manicures, how she spoke

blowing out cigarette smoke, her words

leaving her mouth as ghosts, the music

of her nicknames: Cucha, Cuchita, Pucha.

I kiss her hello and she slaps me hard

across my arm: ¡Cabrón! Too handsome
to visit your Tía, eh?
She laughs, pulls me


inside her efficiency, a place I thought

I had forgotten, comes back to life

with wafts of Jean Naté and Pine Sol,

the same calendar from Farmacia León

with scenes of Old Havana on the wall,

the same peppermints in a crystal dish.

And her, wearing a papery housecoat,

sneakers with panty hose, like she wore

those summer mornings she'd walk me

down to the beach along First Street,

past the washed-out pinks and blues

of the Art Deco hotels like old toys.

The retirees lined across the verandas

like seagulls peering into the horizon,

the mango popsicles from the bodeguita

and the pier she told me was once

a bridge to Cuba--have all vanished.

I ask how she's feeling, but we agree

not to talk about that today, though

we both know why I have come

to see her: in a few months, maybe

weeks, her lungs will fill up again,

her heart will stop for good. She too

will vanish, except what I remember

of her, this afternoon: sharing a pastelito,

over a café she sweetens with Equal

at her dinette table crowded with boxes

of low-salt saltines and fibery cereals.

Under the watch of Holy Jesus' heart

burning on the wall, we gossip about

the secret crush she had on my father

once, she counts exactly how many

years and months since she left Cuba

and her mother forever. We complain

about the wars, disease, fires blazing

on the midday news as she dunks

the flowers in a tumbler--a dozen red

suns burst in the sapphire sky framed

in the window, sitting by the table.

Este poema pertenece al libro: Looking for the Gulf Motel.

SOMEWHERE TO PARIS


The sole cause of a man's unhappiness
is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.


--Pascal, Pensées

The vias of Italy turn to memory with each turn

and clack of the train's wheels, with every stitch

of track we leave behind, the duomos return again

to my imagination, already imagining Paris--

a fantasy of lights and marble that may end

when the train stops at Gare de l'Est and I step

into the daylight. In this space between cities,

between the dreamed and the dreaming, there is

no map--no legend, no ancient street names

or arrows to follow, no red dot assuring me:

you are here--and no place else. If I don't know

where I am, then I am only these heartbeats,

my breaths, the mountains rising and falling

like a wave scrolling across the train's window.

I am alone with the moon on its path, staring

like a blank page, shear and white as the snow

on the peaks echoing back its light. I am this

solitude, never more beautiful, the arc of space

I travel through for a few hours, touching

nothing and keeping nothing, with nothing

to deny the night, the dark pines pointing

to the stars, this life, always moving and still.

Del Libro: Directions to the Beach of the Dead.

Más información en el Web Site del Autor: http://www.richard-blanco.com/

Noticia referente a su juventud, homosexualidad e hispanidad siendo el Primer Poeta que recitará en la Toma de Posesión de un Presidente de los Estados Unidos en este caso el de Barack Obama la noticia salió publicada en varios medios de comunicación como por ejemplo este publicado en la opinión.com

http://www.laopinion.com/Poeta_Richard_Blanco_recitar%C3%A1_en_inauguraci%C3%B3n_de_Obama___

Autor: Robert Allen Goodrich Valderrama

Panamá