tisdag 27 juni 2017

In Stephen Dedalus footsteps

  Idag tar förlagsrubriken oss till Irland. Det lilla förlaget The Dedalus Press i Dublin publicerar ungefär tio titlar per år, huvudsakligen diktsamlingar. Jag förvånas över hur utgivningen pendlar i kvalitet. Kan det verkligen vara lönsamt? I Sverige hade de inte blivit långlivade.


***

  Kanske hittar vi svaret på min ovanstående fråga i förlagets deklaration:

"The Dedalus Press is one of Ireland’s best known and longest running literary imprints, specialising in the best in contemporary Irish poetry and poetry from around the world in translation. We also publish occasional prose titles by poets, or books which survey or explore aspects of the world of poetry. The press receives support from The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and is a not-for-profit enterprise dedicated to improving the visibility of poetry and the lot of poets. Dubbed “one of the most outward-looking poetry presses in Ireland and the UK” (UNESCO.org) ..." Citation from dedaluspress.com


  Så klart har förlaget tagit sitt namn efter James Joyce alter ego "Stephen Dedalus".

*


A dance of deception: Play of seasons (extract), by Ljubomir Levchev (f. 1935)

(From And here I am. Translated from Bulgarian by Jack Harte. Dublin : Dedalus Press, 2003.)

2. Summer Violin

To be in the future . . . in that case. . . your eyes
will need to be able to read ahead for several bars,
that means you must not be contemporary.

This quickly-passing summer world
is painted over with transparent water-colours;
the blank spaces, the rests, not touched
either by brush or bow, proffer
different solutions. Too late now, however.

Sound has disappeared,
blossom withered.
On this virgin plane even tears
leave a scar, a crater formed

by a meteor.
The eyes of Maldoror. . . 



Fireflies no longer recognise me.
The moon lifts.
Nostalgia comes flooding in.


(...)


***


  Förlaget grundades 1985 av poeten John F Deane, och har sedan 2006 drivits av poeten Pat Boran med Raffaela Tranchino som direktör. Dedalus är allmänt erkänt som ett av de mest proaktiva av de irländska litterära förlagen, och de har introducerat dussintals nya poeter genom sin utgivning.

  Den sistnämnda uppgiften (förstår jag inte) överträffades 2010 när de gav ut antologin, Landing places : immigrant poets in Ireland. I den presenteras 66 poeter som är bosatta på ön, men som har annat än irländskt ursprung. Det var bland annat den här boken jag tänkte på i min ingress. Här blandas texter från etablerade och skickliga poeter med rent amatörmässiga dikter. Men bland de nya förmågorna fanns det några guldkorn. Anamaria Crowe Serrano hade fyra intressanta bidrag med. Jag valde ut den här ...

*

[where do streets lead], by Anamaria Crowe Serrano
(From Landing places : immigrant poets in Ireland. Dublin : Dedalus Press, 2010.)

where do streets lead
without a working compass
magnetic north spinning south
unsure of its itinerary


City quay of Dublin

my steps on asphalt
wrongfoot their own cartography
stumble on the failing memory
of wood on quay
dubh in linn

the landmarks are of loss
construction begetting
deconstruction, land
no longer a mark of its people
locked in dislocation
               errant
                              erring

I take a left turn into silence
clueless
in the sinister side of complicity


***

  Däremot blev jag väldigt förtjust i en av deras senare titlar, som helt fokuserar på portugisisk poesi. Den här tvåspråkiga antologin gav mig flera nya favoriter, och inledningen med texter av Alberto Caeiro (som jag inte hade koll på) var gripande.


(Extract from "The Keeper of sheep", by Alberto Caeiro (1889-1915. Included in 28 Portuguese poets : a bilingual anthology. Translated by Richard Zenith and Alexis Levitin. Dublin, Ireland : Dedalus Press, 2015.)


I

I've never kept sheep,
but it's as if I kept them.
My soul is like a shepherd.
It knows the wind and sun,
and walks hand in hand with the Seasons
looking at what passes.
All the peace of Nature without people
sits down by my side.
But I get sad like a sunset
in our imagination
when the cold drifts over the plain
and we feel the night come in
like a butterfly through the window.

Yet my sadness is a comfort
for it is natural and right
and is what should fill the soul
whenever it thinks it exists
and doesn't notice the hands that pick flowers.

Like a sound of sheep-bells
beyond the bend in the road
my thoughts are content.
My only regret is that I know they're content,
since if I did not know it
they would be content and happy
instead of sadly content.

Thinking is a discomfort, like walking in the rain
when the wind kicks up and it seems to rain harder.

I have no ambitions and no desires.
To be a poet is not my ambition,
it's my way of being alone.


(...)

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