Poems by Samantha Barendson
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- Writing -
Writing is waiting. Writing is waiting for something to come. Writing is depending on when it will come. Writing is thinking that it will never come back again. Writing is wondering if it will come again. Writing is looking at the white page. Writing is leaving the computer and going back to the TV. Writing is looking at the white page. Writing is leaving the computer and eating something from the fridge. Writing is looking at the white page. Writing is pacing up and down and reading to forget. Writing is waiting. Writing is doubting. Writing is thinking that the next line will be never as good as the last one. Writing is doubting. Writing is stumbling. Writing is waiting. Writing is at last a moving hand. Writing is at last galloping fingers. Writing is lining up words, lengthening sentences, blackening sheets. Writing is every word a musical note on a score Writing is music, rhythm, tempo, movement, measure. Writing is galloping horses in the mind, their typing hooves on the desk, their tails whipping the thoughts. Writing is a shot of adrenaline, accelerating pulse, pending breath, apnea. Writing is telling the others to leave you alone, to prepare their own dinner by ordering pizza. Writing is now or never, or it will slip away, back to waiting, back to doubting. Writing is a flash, a gap, a slap. Writing is a trance, an ecstasy, an alkaloidal delirium. Writing is reading and wondering where these words are from, from whose minds’ hinterland, which floor, which basement. Writing is surprising. Writing is regaining consciousness and conquering text and tempo again, and galloping, tatactatoum, tatactatoum, tatactatoum. Writing is a passing train. Writing is being on board and looking through the window. Writing is a passing landscape and eyes attempting to capture it. Writing is painting. Writing is being a pointillist. Writing is enjoying. Writing is coming. Writing is orgasming. Writing is silence. Silence. Writing is marks, spots, circles and colors before the eyes. Writing is breathing, sighing, inspiring. Writing is reading aloud already-delivered words, reading aloud new-born sentences, speaking. Writing is daring to say. Writing is speaking. Writing is saying unsayable words, impalpable phrases, unpaintable spaces. Writing is risking poetry. And living. Translated by the author and Jacky Luciani - Trains - Scenes unravel like a Jackson Pollock, cow dots, stretched clouds, sunflower patches and deformed tracks. The cold window sticks to my ear and I can hear the tactactac of the human beast. Tatactatum, tatactatum, tatactatum. I am not Eva Maria Saint, I am not going North by Northwest and Cary Grant is not kissing me. All I can see behind these glass panes are picture postcard scenes, pre-war countryside, railway prints : a cow, a castel, a church, a donkey, an old motorcyle or a disused train, grass as far as the eye can see, poppy fields, a flared skirt, a fizzy drink, a piece of plastic, a bin, a neon light, a flash. Tatactatum, tatactatum, tatactatum. I am not Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter waiting for next Thursday, next Thursday, next Thursday’s forbidden loves in a little cafe. All I can see behind this window pane are bitter landscapes going round and round and on and on and cows look like cows and the snow hides every trace of wolf, ogre and witch. Tatactatum, tatactatum, tatactatum. I am not Marilyn Monroe in Some like it Hot. All I can see are immense mounds, rock gardens and weeds which astonished horns methodically ruminate. Tatactatum, tatactatum, tatactatum. The kilometers add up, the North is still a long way away. A hundred and five point eight, we’ll get there tomorrow. Translated by Dom Gabrielli |
 BARENDSON (c) Tanguy Guézo
Samantha Barendson is a French, Italian and Argentinian poet. She was born in 1976 in Spain, grew up Mexico and finally settled in France, in Lyons. Like herself, her writing travels from one language to another, and sometimes get mix in a creative reinvention.
Author of poetry but also novels, she likes to work with other artists, painters, illustrators, photographers, dancers and musicians. Then she likes to declaim, perform or sing her poetry on stage, a little frustrated for not being a Tango singer. She is an active member of the collective Le syndicat des poètes qui vont mourir un jour (The union of poets who will die someday) whose purpose is to promote poetry for everyone and everywhere. She is also member of the collective Le cercle de la maison close (The whorehouse society) which offers performances combining poetry, music and visual arts. In March 2015, she received the French poetry "René Leynaud" award for her poetry book "Le citronnier" (The lemon tree). |
