Rooftop Poetry Club - Kristin Dykstra

Kristin Dykstra

Bio:
Kristin Dykstra's The Winter Garden Photograph, a translation of Reina Maria Rodr?guez' La foto del invernadero, is forthcoming from Green Integer Press. Factory School released a new edition of Time's Arrest / La detenci?n del tiempo in 2005. Recent translations appear in Words Without Borders, Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico, Sibila: Revista de Poesia e Cultura, & Fascicle. She is currently working on critical essays, including a piece about Rodr?guez' work and two essays dealing with Something of the Sacred, her translation of a book of poetry by Omar P?rez. She is also translating short essays by P?rez; "The Intellectual and Power in Cuba" is forthcoming. She co-edits Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas with Roberto Tejada and Gabriel Bernal Granados.

Website: www.ilstu.edu/~kadykst

Poems:

the one who's diving (1978)

the young woman is Lily Brik, Mayakovsky's comrade
and Elsa T.'s sister, diving
into the pool with blue and green waters
and that's me between other stories about friends.
there too are my parents in the little boat,
"Victor," victorious over the ocean enclosed
in a fishbowl. the one who's diving is
someone else too, who has never written a poem, who has
no hierarchy other than the desire inscribed
in his brow, frowning about not being anyone. the victor
(that one who's diving) jumping over the quiet water
with his glass of light (Bavarian) beer ice-cold
in his fingers: time. a character who is always
with us, signifying us to ourselves
as we enter turbulence, or emerge into peace
after a mental war. earth, water, fire, air,
heavens, discernment and ego-essence, here I have the
division of my nature, its instrument.
the one who's diving-manipulating reality,
montage technique, with his hidden camera-
makes an effort by his immersion to be convinced
that he's coming back from there, from some unreal landscape,
to encounter her again
in that corridor of alcohol
where she stands, stilled, at the end
(at the end of her life)
stilled, between them and the others;
while your image refracts
and accelerates the collapse of the islands
into the blue and green waters . . .
the manipulation is so old
the one diving is the only innocent
who, in his joy, doesn't recognize this experiment
interrupted by the arrival of a wave . . .
(I think that when it happens to you, if it happens to you,
you won't know it.)

Four Poems by Omar P?rez
(Translated by Kristin Dykstra)

Pure Subject, Subject in Pieces

. . . who wrote hoping to
corrupt the ages to come.
Who wrote with the intention of doing damage, suborning
future generations
readers of solid reputation, emancipated
in the dull sacra of libraries and conversations
and, again, libraries;
who wrote with the illusion of making enemies.
Who wrote with the intention of extorting from posterity
readers, pale or bronzed, erect (obscenely)
on top of cultural protocols and boredom?s protocols
and, again, boredom?s protocols;
who wrote with the pretension that they?d slander him.
Who wrote, it?s said, with the illusion of making enemies?
unexpectedly, they add, he was distracted or hindered;
he came apart, leaving the work half done.

Camilo in the Clinic Hallway

Camilo possesses himself of the clinic hallway
in the photo that?s too old for me
and too new for anyone who can bear this kind of place any longer.
Camilo is laughing alone in the hallway
and he who laughs alone
recalls a more clear and simple time
he who laughs alone
deposits a comprehensible heart
in a sink as credit.
Camilo laughs alone
it?s clear that I have just one way out,
I mimic him
and as if I were a sort of spoiled saint
and as if I were an unyielding saint
I chew over the smoldering ash from a more difficult time,
he mimics me.

Diogenes Has Shown

Diogenes has shown that the tongue is like a sponge
adding that this is true for all of us; me included.
Diogenes activated all the resources of his grandstanding tongue
in sight of friends, see? (me included) and women
he crushed it brutally between his index fingers and thumbs
to force the last drop of meaning out.
Through his beard, which is already silvery, see?, streamed
brilliant words of saliva or words intrinsically brilliant,
when it was over, though, Diogenes noted sadly
that no one, none of us, me included,
can squeeze everything out of a sponge.

Victory of the Disobedient

In the crowd
a man has slyly nudged a pigeon with his foot
many times before picking it up.
There is just one life and we?ll shield it with scales
There is just one life and we?ll cover it with the words of others.
We?ll pat it slyly several times before deciding that we want it.