Poems by Nuno Júdice

 COMO SE FAZ O POEMA
 
Para falarmos do meio de obter o poema,
a retórica não serve. Trata-se de uma coisa simples, que não
precisa de requintes nem de fórmulas. Apanha-se
uma flor, por exemplo, mas que não seja dessas flores que crescem
no meio do campo, nem das que se vendem nas lojas
ou nos mercados. É uma flor de sílabas, em que as
pétalas são as vogais, e o caule uma consoante. Põe-se
no jarro da estrofe, e deixa-se estar. Para que não morra,
basta um pedaço de primavera na água, que se vai
buscar à imaginação, quando está um dia de chuva,
ou se faz entrar pela janela, quando o ar fresco
da manhã enche o quarto de azul. Então,
a flor confunde-se com o poema, mas ainda não é
o poema. Para que ele nasça, a flor precisa
de encontrar cores mais naturais do que essas
que a natureza lhe deu. Podem ser as cores do teu
rosto – a sua brancura, quando o sol vem ter contigo,
ou o fundo dos teus olhos em que todas as cores
da vida se confundem, com o brilho da vida. Depois,
deito essas cores sobre a corola, e vejo-as descerem
para as folhas, como a seiva que corre pelos
veios invisíveis da alma. Posso, então, colher a flor,
e o que tenho na mão é este poema que
me deste.



HOW TO WRITE A POEM
 
In order to talk about how to give birth to a poem,
rhetoric is of no use. It is a simple method requiring neither niceties
nor formulas. For example, we pick a flower, but  not one of those
flowers that grow in the middle of the field, nor those that are sold in
shops and markets. It is a flower of syllables, the petals its vowels,
the stem its consonant. Place it in a stanza vase and leave it there.
All which is needed for it not to die is a little summer in its water,
collected from the imagination, on a rainy day or let in through the
window when the fresh morning air fills the room with blue. Thus, the
flower becomes confused with the poem, but it is still not the poem.
For it to be born, the flower needs to find colours which are more
natural than those given to it by nature. It could be the colour of your
face – its lightness, when the sun comes to meet you, or the depth of
of your eyes where all life’s colours are mixed in the radiance of life.
Then, I pour these colours into the corolla and watch it descend into
the leaves, like the sap that courses through the invisible veins of the
soul. I can then pluck the flower and what I hold in my hand is this
poem which you have given me.
 
Translated by Ana Hudson
 
 
 
 
Fábula industrial
 
As chaminés das fábricas tinham
pescoços de cegonha, e quando deitavam
fumo era como se as cegonhas abrissem
as asas. Quando o fumo era preto,
porém, as cegonhas transformavam-se
em corvos de grandes pescoços feitos
de tijolo; e ao contrário das cegonhas
não voavam, mas faziam soar as sirenes
com os bicos metálicos, para que
os operários saíssem do seu ventre
em direcção a casa. No dia
seguinte, se o fumo fosse branco, as operárias
agarrar-se-iam às asas da cegonha
e puxá-las-iam, como se fossem
linho, para as enrolar e meter
nos contentores que os barcos esperam
no cais, para as levar para os países
com falta de lençóis. É por isso que
os ninhos de cegonha, nos grandes postes
eléctricos estão vazios; e que as raposas
correm de uma árvore para outra,
à procura de um ramo em que esteja
um corvo, sem conseguirem encontrar
o queijo que a fábula lhes prometeu.
 
 
 
Industrial fable
 
The factory chimneys had
stork necks, and when they blew out
smoke it was as if the storks opened
their wings. When the smoke was black
however, the storks changed into
crows with huge necks made of
bricks; unlike the storks, they didn’t
take flight but instead sounded sirens
with their metallic beaks, letting
the home bound workers out
of their bellies. The following
day, if the smoke were white, the workers
would hold on to the storks’ wings
and stretch them as if they were
linen in order  to fold them and
store them in containers awaited by ships
which would take them to countries
where there was a lack of sheets. This
is the reason stork nests atop tall
electric pylons are empty; and the
reason why foxes ran from tree to tree
looking for a perching crow, unable to find
the fable promised cheese.
 
 
Translated by Ana Hudson

Nuno Júdice (1949) is an essayist, poet and fiction writer. He graduated in Romance Philology and obtained the degree of Doctor from the New University of Lisbon (Universidade Nova), where he was professor until 2015. He received Spain's Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize in 2013, between other important prizes. In 1997, he was appointed Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of Portugal and Director of the Camões Institute in Paris. In 2009, he assumed the direction of Colóquio/Letras, the literary magazine of the Gulbenkian Foundation. He has works translated in many languages and is also a translator of poetry and theater.

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