Le Api dell'Invisibile torna con un'uscita speciale dedicata alle parole dell'affermato poeta turco Ataol Behramoğlu e all'ispirazione che da esse hanno saputo trarre le giovanissime Ilaria Guarisco e Michela Primerano, che nel corso dell'anno hanno collaborato con La Casa della Poesia di Como nell'ambito del progetto di Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro.
Un'uscita eccezionale per la rubrica dunque anche nei contenuti. Oggi Le Api dell'Invisibile propone di riflettere sul meccanismo con cui la poesia agisce quotidianamente per ciascuno di noi. Proviamo a pensare al cervello umano come a un sistema di ricorcolo dell'aria e ci verrà facile comprendere perchè è importante celebrare e promuovere il lavoro che queste due giovani hanno compiuto su poesie altrui. Stare chiusi nella propria scatola a chiusura ermetica, bastevoli a se stessi, porta di sicuro alla morte per asfissia: per sopravvivere abbiamo bisogno di cambiare ossigeno, abbiamo bisogno di un ricircolo d'aria. Così anche la scrittura e le parole non bastano a se stesse e a chi le scrive, ma necessitano di essere lette, rilette e reinterpretate. Il lavoro di Ilaria e Michela dimostra quanto sia possibile e bello fare nostre le parole altrui, a un livello di empatia e comprensione così intimo da potersi quasi scordare da quale fonte esse si siano originate. La mente umana funziona solamente con l'opzione ricircolo sempre attiva: facciamo circolare pensieri, esperienze e sentimenti altrui dentro noi stessi; ma ciò che davvero rende l'essere umano straordinario è la sua capacità di rendere proprio ciò che è stato creato da altri. Con le loro opere Michela e Ilaria non hanno celebrato solamente la creatività di Ataol Behramoğlu, ma anche la loro stessa inventiva insieme a quella di tutti coloro che ogni giorno prendono le parole altrui e se ne lasciano ispirare per creare qualcosa di nuovo e altrettanto straordinario.
"Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra"
di Ataol Behramoğlu
(traduzione dall'inglese di Ilaria Guarisco)
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Girasole dallo stelo piegato
Sei il futuro della poesia e dell’amore
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Vento di montagna, il miele d’arancio
Umile, abile, vibrante di passioni
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Sposa il cui destino è inciso nell’oscurità
Il latte asciutto nel suo seno
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Nel profondo bruci di un fuoco impetuoso
Impoverita nelle mani di ladri
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Mia saggia ricca di esperienza
I poeti: Yunus, Pir Sultan, Nazim
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Canti popolari, lamenti funebri, danze popolari
Pane fresco dal forno
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Mia madre, il suo viso tutto rugoso
Mio melograno piangente, melo sorridente
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Luce solare sui vigneti
Meritevole del più meraviglioso futuro
Turchia, mia infelice terra, mia amabile terra
Ti contorci sotto le catene
Quando ti si pensa finita hai appena iniziato
"Lirica a una bambina in piedi presso la porta"
di Ataol Behramoğlu
(traduzione dall'inglese di Ilaria Guarisco)
La bambina in piedi presso la porta
Mi richiama una visione rurale
Scintille di sole nei suoi capelli
Nei suoi occhi si agita l'oceano
Nella bambina in piedi presso la porta
Tutte le ere si fanno complete
Le montagne nascono con un crepitio
I potenti oceani diventano profondi
Gli amori iniziano e giungono a una fine
E il mondo continua a girare
La notte e il giorno si trascinano l’un l’altro
In ordine, senza deviare
La bambina sta in piedi presso la porta
Inconsapevole di tutto questo
Da dentro di lei e senza
La vita fluisce senza sosta.
Riflessioni di Ilaria Guarisco sulle poesie di Ataol Behramoğlu
SABIHA
Give me a cigarette, my mother died
She died this morning around five I suppose
Allah Allah, my dear, what’s the big surprise
I told you, that’s all, my mother died
Don’t look at me like that, you’ll make me laugh
If we had a mirror, you’d see how dumb you look
Just my touch would make you too laugh
Why don’t you give up playing it by the book
This past year she didn’t even play the violin
As her wrinkles multiplied, she grew angry
They were dad’s fault, as though made by him
And she kept on saying, no one understands me
If you want, let’s go to the movies or something
There’s a Nadya film playing at the Tayyareh
My younger brother cried a lot yesterday evening
Really, what’s up with Sabiha anyway?
The first poem I translated was “Sabiha”, which deals with the poet’s grief after his mother’s death. I was particularly struck by the fact that what emerges from the poem is Ataol’s resignation, more than his pain; he already knew his mother was going to die soon. She couldn’t play the violin anymore in the past year, so it was no surprise to him when she left this world. In this kind of poems, the ones that talk about a beloved’s death, the poet usually turns to divine in order to ask for a reason to such loss or to be freed from the burden of pain. Here instead, Ataol mentions Allah when he states that this death was expected, also because of his father whom he blames for his mother’s “wrinkles”, an image to represent her anger and frustration since she wasn’t understood. Nevertheless, reading between the lines I noticed the poet’s great pain hidden behind his words when he suggests going to the movies; he’s looking for a distraction, a way to occupy his mind with something other than his loss. The poem ends with a question: he’s wondering “What’s up with Sabiha”, as if her death didn’t happen. He’s in denial, he went so far into his search for distraction that now he puts everything in doubt.
A VERY STRANGE BLACK
There, where Walt Whitman is from, a black
In Harlem, its leaves after rain
Glass of gin, a double martini
As if feeling myself there in the dark
In Harlem, its leaves after rain
My hands and flesh that I left behind
If I don’t shut up, I’ll lose my mind
It’s like I have another me in train
Glass of gin, a double martini
I thought of your loveliest places
I thought of your loveliest places in the ugliest places
To forget and to die involved so little pain
As if feeling my self there in the dark
I perceived so many strange things
On Harlem a strange rain had begun to fall
There, where Walt Whitman is from, three blacks
The second poem, “A very strange black”, is more focused on matters of political and civic interest. Here I caught the poet’s desire for change. His motherland, Turkey, is under a regime that doesn’t leave much freedom of thought, and that oppressess minorities. He mentions Walt Whitman, a reference point in the battle for their rights fought by people of color in the United States. As I see it, Ataol implies that the Turkish people should follow their example and claim democracy, they should join together and fight. This idea of joining together is stressed by the fact that in the first line, only one black man is mentioned, whereas in the last one, there are three. Ataol never brings up the idea of moving away from his country, he just wants it to change. The idea of rain expressess this quite effectively; water washes away the old and reveals the new. Obviously, so as to change a whole country it is necessary to start from oneself; that’s why he has “another him in train”, he’s trying to become a better version of himself.
ONE DAY SURELY
Today I made love and then I joined in a march
I’m exhausted, it’s spring, I’ve got to learn to shoot a gun
this summer
The books pile up, my hair’s getting long, everywhere there’s
a rumble of anxiety
I’m still young, I want to see the world, how lovely it is
to kiss, how lovely to think, one day surely we’ll win
One day surely we’ll win, you money-changers of old,
you goose-brains, you grand-vizier!
My beloved is an eighteen year-old girl, we’re walking down
the avenue, eating a sandwich, talking about the world
Flowers blossom ceaselessly, the wars go on, how can everything
end with a bomb, how can they win, those filthy men
Long I ponder, I wash my face with water, dress myself
in a clean shirt
This tyranny will end one day, this feast of plunder will end
But I’m tired now, I’m smoking a lot, a dirty overcoat
on my back
Furnace smoke rises into the sky, in my pockets
books of poetry in Vietnamese
I think of my friends at the other ends of the earth,
of the rivers at its other ends
A girl dies quietly, dies quietly over there
It is clear that this poem belongs to Ataol’s youth. It’s much longer than the other two, and it’s a continuous flow of thoughts and images that pour out of his impetuosity. There isn’t a logical order in this poem, but we can get what the sense is; the composition is like a chant, a marching song against the war in Vietnam and other civic problems. The time for change is now, Turkish young people march and state this. It’s no longer possible to stick to the old school of thought, the country needs renewal. Ataol is aware that he risks his personal freedom, because he could get arrested at any given moment, but this doesn’t stop him, he is not afraid and accepts his fate. Lastly, I noticed an analogy between the young girl who dies in Vietnam without being heard by anyone and Ataol’s lover, who fights the same battle for freedom.
TURKEY, MY UNHAPPY LAND, MY LOVELY LAND
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Sunflower with bowed neck
The future of poetry and love
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Mountain wind, the honey of oranges
Humble, skillful, passionate
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
The bride whose fate is inscribed in black
The dried up milk in her breasts
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Burning deep inside with a raging fire
distressed in the hands of thieves
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
My wise and experienced land
The poets: Yunus, Pir Sultan, Nazim
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Folk songs, dirges, folk dances
Bread fresh from the oven
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
My mother, her face all wrinkled
My weeping pomegranate, smiling quince
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Sunshine on the grapevines
Deserving of the most beautiful future
Turkey, my unhappy land, my lovely land
Writhing beneath her chains
Beginning where they thought her done
This poem reminded me of a funeral dirge because of the recurring repetition of the first line, which is also the title. The anaphora is in fact typical in this kind of composition, where the name of the dead person is often mentioned, in this case, the name of the poet’s land. Along with this, I noticed the strong presence of the idea of light and rebirth expressed by images such as the sunflower, honey, fresh bread, grapevines and especially the pomegranade, that is a fruit full of seeds, typically a symbol of birth. These are all in contrast with strong and dark themes like the raging fire, the bride with no milk in her breast or the chians that restrain the country. The poet sees the tragic condition of his land, but he is certain that Turkey can rise again, it’s not hopeless. The country is wise, it’s like an old mother rich in experience. It also has a glorious past and a beautiful culture, as demonstrated by the three Turkish poets mentioned. Others may think that Turkey is dead and “done”, and they can’t see a future for this country, but it is not Ataol’s case: he sees his motherland’s many resources, its strenght, and he knows that one day Turkey will rise up against the thieves that have robbed it and tried to end it.
SPRINGTIME
I raised my face to the clouds
Murmuring as though in prayer
Washing myself with birds and grasses there
With the winds and springtime
The sun on my eyelids is warm
Ah! That fickle springtime sun
Is this real, or do I dream
I am here, or am not it seems
In a southern town, a coffeehouse by the shore
In waves, ears of grain endlessly roll
Here, alone with myself
This is how I can make my life whole
I have never kissed a bird on its tongue
Some day, perhaps, I can kiss one so
Some day, perhaps, I'll become a gust of wind
And across the ears of grain I'll blow
I want my heart to merge with a summer's day
In birdsong to be born anew
This is a more lyrical poem; Ataol describes the sensations he feels when he is surrounded by nature. He feels the warmth of sunlight on his closed eyes, the sound of chirping birds, the winds of springtime on his skin. I flet his wish to become a whole with nature: he says that maybe one day he’ll become a gust of wind and blow in a field of grain, he wants to kiss a bird and merge with a day of summer. This sequence of images linked to nature’s rebirth during springtime gave me a sense of peace. What came to my mind while reading this poem was the memory of myself lying on the grass sunbathing in a meadow where I have been last summer, on the shore of a lake near where I live; it’s a very pleasant memory.
GAZEL TO A VANISHING LOVE and GAZEL TO A BYGONE SUMMER
That summer sun which blinds my eyes
Turns into the image of a vanishing love
A sense of being lost that brings hints to me of my childhood
From the alienation within on desolate afternoons
A traveler who's lost his way in a strange town
Who knows whence come and going whither
An echo, that will never return to its voice
Repeating itself forlornly in the emptiness
Ever does that summer sun, that unconsoling sun above
Turn into the image of a vanishing love
The river was flowing like a dark night
Writhing in the depths of the gorge
I gazed upon it from a hillock
My spirit flowing along with it
Its breast rose and fell
Illuminated by a frigid moon
How it was filled with itself alone
How oblivious it was and naked
Its song, the pain-filled song of the universe
Longing for freedom and yet imprisoned
River of night, brother of my spirit
It was flowing, colliding with its banks
My thoughts about these two poems go hand in hand because they both summoned the same feelings in me when I read them. They both deal with loss: the first one talks about the loss of a lover, whereas the second one about the end of summer. All this made me feel some kind of melancholy, reminding me of my personal experience. I felt the sadness I always feel at the end of August, when the summer vacations are almost over and we have to go back to our everyday life, giving up the sense of freedom and well being that summer always brings.
I noticed a similarity between these two poems and romantic poetry belonging to the 19th century; poets of that time indeed often used natural elements as a mirror for their feelings, stressing the bond between man and nature, as Ataol does in these compositions.
GAZEL TO A CHILD STANDING AT THE DOOR
The child standing at the door
Recalls a rural vision
Sunshine kindles in her hair
In her eyes stirs an ocean
In the child standing at the door
All the ages are made complete
With a crackle mountains are born
The mighty oceans grow deep
Loves begin and come to an end
And the world keeps on turning
Night and day trail one another
In order, undeviating
The child standing at the door
Is unaware of any of these
From inside her and without
Life flows on without surcease
In this poem I really appreciated the constrast bewteen something small and fragile like a child and something ancient and mighty like the ocean or the passing of time. Our time on this world is extremely brief and for us everything has an end, even love, the strongest and most compelling feeling. The universe, however, continues to exist: time is an infinite succession of geological eras and the mark left by men in all these is unimaginalby small, almost insignificant, like the child.
In my view, the choice of a child rather than a person in any other stage of life is remarkable. Children have something adults often lose or forget: the power of imagination, of looking behind what appears and seizing the very essence of things. They haven’t lost their innocence yet, and they are unaware and naive.
GAZEL TO A LONG-AGO NIGHT
Suddenly, a long-ago night
Of its own accord in me born
The depot of a small town
And a motionless train
Everything sleeps, even the night
Only the stars are awake and I
Perhaps it is snowing persistently
Perhaps raining thinly
A song, just on the tip of my tongue
Made up of words forgotten now
Suddenly the cars move
A woman gazes from the window
A woman lost in dreams, pensive
A woman, looks at me without seeing
The cars pass, one after the other
The woman and train are lost to my sight
Yet ever do I recall that night
Out of a thousand nights
This poem is suspended in time; there is a sense of waiting for something about to suddenly happen. In a dark and gloomy night, the poet finds himself near the train station, supposedly in the outskirts of a town. Everything is still, silent, dark: and all of a sudden, the cars begin to move and a woman gazes out of a window. This woman is the only element of light and liveliness in the situation described.
The night recalled by the poet apparently lacks of anything remarkable; it is an ordinary, quiet night. Yet, Ataol preserves its memory out of another thousand, because it has a specific meaning to him. In fact, this often happens; small things that are forgettable and irrelevant to others, could leave a particular mark on us and become essential.
NOTA BIOGRAFICA
Mi chiamo Ilaria Guarisco, ho diciassette anni e frequento l’indirizzo linguistico al liceo Teresa Ciceri a Como. Tra pochi mesi sarò in quinta e dovrò iniziare a pensare al futuro; mi piacerebbe portare avanti lo studio delle lingue straniere, ma vorrei anche coltivare la mia passione per la fotografia e farne una professione. Lo scorso anno infatti ho frequentato un corso tenuto nella mia scuola che mi ha permesso di entrare in un mondo, quello della fotografia appunto, che richiede grande impegno e perseveranza ma che stimola molto la propria creatività, oltre ad aprire molte porte. Alle scuole medie ho studiato il francese oltre all’inglese, e questo mi ha permesso di maturare un grande interesse per le lingue. Mi piacerebbe molto studiare l’arabo e il giapponese, che sono entrambe abbastanza complicate per un’occidentale, in quanto non utilizzano il nostro alfabeto e hanno una pronuncia completamente diversa, ma trovo che siano estremamente affascinanti oltre che utili sul piano delle opportunità lavorative in un mondo sempre più globalizzato. Nel tempo libero amo anche leggere, in particolare i generi del giallo e del fantasy ma anche classici, biografie e a volte qualche fumetto. Penso sia un’attività che ciascuno dovrebbe fare, perché è estremamente utile per sviluppare una buona proprietà di linguaggio, oltre che per ampliare il proprio bagaglio culturale.
"They were eyes"
di Ataol Behramoğlu
(interpretazione per immagini di Michela Primerano)
They were eyes,
that kindle with mute
sorrow
They were eyes, that make useless the
word
They were eyes, impassioned, tender,
anxious
They were eyes, mother, lover, friend
They were eyes.
They were eyes, in a child’s innocence
Like a heart, throbbing
They were eyes, that while gazing on the world
Rendered it brilliant with meaning
They were eyes, that embraced me with glances
They were eyes, for which now I hopelessly long
They were eyes, that are no more
They were eyes, that are forever gone
They were eyes, the eyes of my childhood
Who knows in what worlds they now are
Perhaps, on the trail of glass beads
In a girl’s braided hair
And the eyes of my early youth
Searching for the first poems
Chasing after the first passions
And cloudy dreams
They were eyes, simply wishing
To believe that life must be deathless
They were eyes, tamely extinguished
Like a light in the darkness
They were eyes, that kindle with mute sorrow
They were eyes, mother, lover, friend
They were tender, anxious, impassioned
They were eyes, the eyes of those I loved.
NOTA BIOGRAFICA
Mi chiamo Michela Primerano, abito a Como ed ho 18 anni. Frequento il liceo linguistico Teresa Ciceri (Como), dove ho la fortuna e la possibilità di studiare tre lingue straniere: inglese, francese e tedesco. Ognuna di queste lingue ha saputo catturarmi, in un modo o nell'altro, anche se preferisco il francese, con la sua dolce melodiosità e il tedesco, con la sua ricchezza di termini dalle mille sfumature differenti. Ho sempre amato leggere, fin da bambina, ma ho avuto modo di sviluppare e approfondire questa mia passione solo durante l'adolescenza. Prediligo i generi fantasy, fantascientifico, distopico e i classici. Agli albori della mia adolescenza ho inoltre avuto la fortuna di entrare in contatto con il mondo dei manga, i fumetti giapponesi, e degli anime, i cartoni animati giapponesi, di cui sono ancora appassionata. Sono molto affezionata alle poesie di Giacomo Leopardi. Amo passare il mio tempo libero con mio fratello e mia sorella minori.