#lynetteroberts

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Lynette Roberts: Diaries, Letters and Recollections

1939

November 3rd

The Cottage, Llanstephan

My sister’s birthday, and I have celebrated it by scrubbing the floor, cleaning the grate. Keidrych says I have some funny ideas about poets. I have. I think good real living is more importanta than spreading yourself on paper. If only the gutless poets that abound today (and there are too many of them) lived admirably rather than preach the exact opposite to what they sing, then I am with them. But when they distort poetry and merely use it as an outlet for their worst grievances and sidewalk niggles, then please God I am not a poet. Not to be classed with these nit-wits, these perambulator bards, but to be just a normal person who can take my full share of responsibility. I have met them, many of them, and they have tried to drag-weigh-me-under with their twisted ways. But I will have none of it. If it were not for the fact that literature would suffer (so little is thought of it already) I would expose these poets; but I feel there is, unfortunately already too little interest from the public; and for me to write it to the strain-eyed-world could only lessen the little faith that the people have in dedicated writers.

Keydrich enjoyed his lunch; he looks very unpleasant today. Debauched, with his four-day beard, he is busy scratching behind me writing to Kilham Roberts asking if the Library Society will grant us some money to live on. There can be no dole for us. The M[inistry] of L[abour] said we had no stamps. Even though we have both worked previously for two or three years. Neither can he give us a job. Then what are we to live on, Government, I ask you? There are always fallen apples, and the onion soup, but how long will that last! Today Keidrych frequently found cinders or grit in his stewed appls. I told him poets must always expect pieces of chimney in their dishes, that is their fate. He laughed and said what he usually does, ‘You ought to be filmed’. His ears are scarlet and I hate him, he is always chewing humbugs.

[a-gency]

October3 #LiquidRefreshment on #NationalPoetryDay - In true #Pisces #Style #Water is the #Inspiration If you come my way that is ... Between now and then, I will offer you A fist full of rock cress fresh from the bank The #Valley tips of garlic red with #Dew Cooler than shallots, a breath you can swank In the #Village when you come. At noon-day I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl Served with a #Lovers spoon and a chopped #Spray Of leeks or savori fach, not used now, In the old way you'll understand. The din Of children singing through the eyelet sheds Ringing smith hoops, chasing the butt of hens; Or I can offer you Cwmcelyn spread With quartz #Stones from the #Wild scratchings of men: You will have to go carefully with clogs Or thick shoes for it's treacherous the fen, The East and West Marshes also have bogs. Then I'll do the #Lights, fill the lamp with oil, Get coal from the shed, water from the well; Pluck and draw pigeon, with #Crop of green foil This your good supper from the lime-#Tree fell. A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising, No talk. Just a stare at '#Time' gathering Healed thoughts, #Pool insight, like swan #Sailing #Peace and #Sound around the #Home, offering You a #Night's rest and my #Day's #Energy. You must come – start this #Pilgrimage Can you come? – send an ode or elegy In the old way and raise our #Heritage. #LynetteRoberts (#PersonalFavourite) "Poem from Llanybri" (1944) #ItsNotTheDestinationItsTheJourney

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Lynette Roberts: ‘Aún la sombra’ (1944)

[fotograma de ‘Les glaneurs et la glaneuse’ (2000), Agnès Varda]

Hablar de lo cotidiano con naturalidad

y retener la mente en un mundo más simple

en el que despojan de ropa a las mesas vivas.

Sobre la madera en la que lavo, sentada en paz:

cociné pato, lo cazaron una tarde de frío escamoso:

estudié un poco: escribí: amasé el pan para los dos.

Pero aquí, junto al lar, con una altivez ociosa,

prefiero hablar del vulgar reloj que gotea con

el repicar de la lluvia: yemas de madreselva y maquilea.

Derrames, lámpara, envase de sal y dos peniques

de nuez moscada que reposan en la esquina metálica

del anaquel. Y debajo, las brasas que calcinan nuestra pena.

Seca los calcetines llorosos encima del escurridor: conocían

a dos ángeles colgados de la pared, otra vez dos.

/trad. Marina Pardavila/

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Lynette Roberts: ‘The Shadow Remains’ (1944)

To speak of everyday things with ease And arrest the mind to a simpler world Where living tables are stripped of a cloth;

Of wood on which I washed, sat at peace: Cooked duck, shot on an evening in peacock cold: Studied awhile: wrote: baked bread for us both.

But here by the hearth with leisured grace I prefer to speak of the vulgar clock that drips With the falling of rain: woodbine tips, and yarrow

Spills, lamp, packet of salt, and twopence of mace That sit on the shelf edged with a metal strip, And below, brazier fire that burns our sorrow,

Dries weeping socks above on the rack: that knew Two angels pinned to the wall – again two.

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Traducción Lynette Roberts: Diaries, Letters and Recollections

[imaxe da Biblioteca Nacional de España]

Un diario de Carmarthenshire

3 de noviembre de 1939 

The Cottage, Llanstephan 

Es el cumpleaños de mi hermana, lo he celebrado restregando el suelo y limpiando el brasero. Keidrych dice que tengo unas ideas sobre los poetas no poco curiosas. Sí que las tengo. Pienso que vivir con autenticidad es más importante que desparramarse sobre el papel. Si los poetas sin sangre que abundan hoy en día (y son demasiados) viviesen, cuando menos de forma honrada, en lugar de andar sentando cátedra contrariamente a lo que recitan, claro que sería una más de ellos. Pero si distorsionan la poesía y la utilizan como un medio para desfogar sus infortunios y menudencias de espíritu, no me hagas llamar poeta, Señor. Que no me junten con esos payasos, esos bardos transeúntes, que me dejen ser una persona normal, capacitada para cargar con sus propias responsabilidades. Los he conocido, he conocido a muchos de ellos, y me han intentando tirar-aplastar-y-hundir de maneras muy perversas. No se lo voy a consentir. Si no fuese porque haría sufrir a la literatura (y ya se la tiene en poca estima), se les caería la careta a esos poetas; sin embargo, creo que no existe por desgracia demasiado interés por parte del público y, de escribir sobre esto para un mundo de mirada cansada, quebrantaría la escasa fe que la gente les profesa a los escritores.

Keidrych disfrutó del almuerzo; hoy tiene muy mal aspecto. De espaldas a mí, demacrado, con la barba de tres días, solo tiene ojos para continuar tachando mientras escribe a Kilham Roberts.  Le pregunta si la Sociedad Literaria nos garantizará una paga con la que poder vivir. No hay ayuda posible. El Ministerio de Trabajo arguye que no cumplimos los requisitos a pesar de que hayamos trabajado durante dos o tres años. Tampoco nos puede ofrecer un empleo. ¿Y de qué vamos a vivir, querido gobierno? ¿Hasta cuándo comeremos manzanas caídas o sopa de cebolla? Hoy, siguiendo la estela habitual, Keidrych se encontró en la compota de manzana con un poco de ceniza o arenilla. Yo ya le he dicho que, como buen poeta, debería esperarse astillas en el plato; nadie escapa de su destino. Soltó una carcajada y me repitió lo de siempre: «A ti habría que grabarte». Tiene las orejas enrojecidas y lo detesto, no para de mascar caramelos.

/trad. Marina Pardavila/