Morgan Mansour was a writer-in-residence at ZVONA i NARI in March/April of 2017. Growing up in Arkansas and Georgia in the US, getting her education at the Vassar College in Upstate New York, Morgan is now travelling across Europe discovering sparks that will ignite her writing and photography.
"I began to write poems in a summer when I rarely spoke English," she explains. "At the start of my time on farms in France, the world was struck nameless; objects gleamed raw in themselves, and words only stuck when they moved me. I marveled how intuitions sprawl mossy in one's native terrain -- but likewise gather as moisture on glass in a foreign tongue, towards the slippery thing we call fluency. A few years later, a fellow student told me that my work reminded him of Medbh McGuckian, whom I didn’t know but grew to love. 'Her language,' Seamus Heaney wrote, 'is like the inner lining of consciousness,' and 'moves amphibiously between the dreamlife and her actual domestic and historical experience.' I can think of no higher aspiration for the text I want to make."
Morgan's poetry is visual as is her photography poetic. „I don't want to give up on either because words and images support each other in my work, create a space for and inspire each other“, says the young author emphasizing how film editing and darkroom photography influenced her poems that we're presenting here in the original English and Croatian translation.
ZiN Daily s radošću predstavlja stihove mlade Morgan Mansour, kako na engleskom tako i u hrvatskom prijevodu. Morgan je bila gošća našeg svratišta ZVONA i NARI u ožujku i travnju ove godine, a kao glavnu odrednicu svoje poetike ističe dijalog između vizualnog (Morgan je i fotografkinja) i poezije.
FOURTH
I reach the point each evening when
there is more heat inside than out. When there is no
you to puncture
doorframes -- to block the pour of orange lamps.
Tonight, there’s just the splint
of fireworks on television.
Somewhere, a man will spit
out on a highway as his kids
fight over a box of juice.
There is no question
that others go on,
and scour the black
haze for consolation.
The traffic charts no constellations.
But still, I watch for patterns in the clutter on my kitchen table; a flutter of half-torn paper,
bent by a fan that hums.
ČETVRTI
Svake večeri dosižem točku na kojoj je više vrućine unutra nego vani. Gdje nema
tebe da probiješ okvire vrata – da zaustaviš slijevanje narančastih svjetiljki.
Večeras na televiziji prikazuju tek iskru vatrometa. Negdje, na autocesti neki će čovjek pljunuti dok mu se djeca svađaju oko bočice soka.
Ostali neupitno nastavljaju dalje, i peru crnu izmaglicu za utjehu. Promet ne iscrtava nikakva sazviježđa.
Pa ipak, tražim uzorke u krtežu na mom kuhinjskom stolu; lepetanje napola pokidanog papira koji savija ventilator što zuji.
THE MOUTHS OF TRAILS
i.
the map must
understand itself
as incomplete &
show its seams
the map is more
interpretive than
informative
land stirs,
anew; map
static, askew &
boundaries vary
ii.
the lover of wine
sets out to build
a vineyard
the vines hide
in their seeds
he ceases to
call the earth
soil; instead
he calls the
ground dirt
iii.
her wrist hits
rope she gasps
and blinks
she turns so sky may glide her narrow
a roof alludes to impasse in passing,
metal ripples make rows
the moon floats
on its back
iv.
the frame connotes as much as it contains
“every still life a love
letter in disguise”
each name a poem
to what exists
I am lonely for
time to greet me
USTA TRAGOVA
i.
karta mora razumjeti samu sebe kao nepotpunu i pokazivati svoje šavove
karta je više interpretativna nego informativna
zemlja se komeša, iznova; karta je statična, iskrivljena i
granice variraju
ii.
ljubitelj vina odlučuje posaditi vinograd
loze su skrivene u vlastitim sjemenkama
prestaje zemlju nazivati tlom; umjesto toga
zove polje njivom
iii.
njezino zapešće udara u konop, ona uzdiše i trepće
okreće se tako da joj nebo klizi bliže
krov upućuje na stranputicu po putu, metalni nabori slažu se u redove
mjesec pluta na svojim leđima
iv.
okvir zadržava koliko i sadržava
„svaka mrtva priroda prikriveno ljubavno pismo“
svako ime pjesma onome što postoji
usamljena čeznem da me vrijeme pozdravi
MINERAL
Mineral, that night.
An ice tray cracks
its teeth. Caverns
brawl beneath a curtain
restless of its contour.
There is no event.
It is a broad line &
a corner, bound by
nails -- a frame.
Smoke lingers in
the dented couch,
a sponge that can
absorb no more of what it sighs.
MINERAL
Mineral, te noći. Posudica za led puna razbijenih zuba. Šupljine
se tuku ispod zavjese nemirne zbog njezinih obrisa.
Nema događaja. Samo široka linija i ugao, omeđen čavlima -- okvir.
Dim visi nad ulubljenim kaučem,
spužva koja može upiti ne više od onoga koliko uzdiše.
STONES
stay and watch
a stone fall;
to scale
each feat
subsumed, the unripe
and solace slips white
/
but birds have
no teeth -- they
swallow stones,
and their gizzards
cut food with grit
KAMENJE
stani i gledaj kamen kako pada;
popeti se na svaki poduhvat
sadržano, nezrelo
a utjeha klizne bijela
/
no ptice nemaju zuba – one gutaju kamenje,
a njihove utrobe režu hranu pijeskom
COMMON SALT
in urgent static
rising out of
lovers’ mouths:
the swoon-drop, the swan-
dive --
in the
candid and collective
sage of generations,
moving closer to
the buried place
where molten
plates make earth;
god is an
adjective, but
the hot-slipper moon won’t
speak.
OBIČNA SOL
u hitnom statičnom uzdizanju iz ljubavničkih usta: padanje u nesvijest, labuđe poniranje --
u iskrenoj i kolektivnoj mudrosti generacija, približavajući se zakopanom mjestu gdje rastaljene ploče tvore zemlju;
bog je pridjev, ali mjesec u toplim papučama neće reći.
Prijevod: NGiOR w/ DAC
Photos by: ZiN Daily and Morgan Mansour
