한국 뉴스에서 미국 시인이 김연아를 위한 헌정시를 썼다고
인터넷을 달구는데....
이 사람은 미국과는 사실 크게 관련이 없는 사람이다. 아메리카가
합중국이니 미국에 살고 있을 뿐이며 교수로 재직중이다. 많은 시를 발표
했지만 미국 자체를 예찬한 시는 하나도 없다.
미 사대주의에 찌든 국민들에게는 미국 시인이라면 달달 떨며
좋아할줄 알았나... 젠장할.... 분명히 그렇겠지만.
Kwame Dawes 는 1962년 가나출신이다. 자메이카에서 자라며
대학을 다녔다. 캐나다 뉴브론즈윅에서 장학금으로 공부했으며
현재 사우스 캘리포니아 네브라스카 링컨대학의 교수로 재직중에 있다.
시인이며 배우이고 뮤지션이며 평론가이다.
꽤 많은 책과 시를 발표했고, 자메이카 천재 뮤지션, '
밥 머레이'에 대한 lyrical genius.
서정적인 천재 라는 이름으로 책을 낸게 있다.
이 책은 나도 보았다. 나 역시 밥 머레이를 좋아하기에....
lyrical genius Bob marley 는 세계적 베스트셀러중 하나이고,
지금도 이베이에서 잘 팔리고 있다.
많은 상은 받은 사회적으로 인정받는 상당히 유명한 사람이다.
다큐멘터리 부문 에미상, 문화와 아트라이프 스타일, 구겐하임 창작아트상,
미국과 캐나다에서....
여기에 그의 시 원문을 소개한다. 역시 저작권은 그에게 있고 그것을 표시한다.
For the duration of the Olympic Games at Sochi this winter, Kwame Dawes’s
Olympic Poetry has been a feature. Read his poem that says goodbye to the
games at WSJ.
Throughout the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, Guggenheim fellowship-
winning poet Kwame Dawes wrote verses to capture the spirit of each day’s
action.
In this final installment the poet considers silver medalist figure skater Yuna
Kim, and the closing ceremonies.
FLIGHT
Prologue
And in the end,
for all the tears
the scandals
the national pride,
the canned narratives,
the myth of glory
all that remains
for this witness
is the poetry
of bodies risking
everything in them
to defy the yanking
pull of gravity—
the atrophy, the decay,
the sheer inevitability
of our deaths—and in this
defiance is the lasting
thing—the games, the holy
games of our splendid hubris.
1
Below them, their insect bodies
etched into the sky—
limbs, tentacles, and the graceful
lean forward—
from here they are doing nothing
short of the miracle
of flight, and we, too, rejoice in this
safe and miraculous
landing in the dust of snow—the cowbells
welcome them home.
2
There is no need
for the whisper
of slow motion
to teach us the fluid
kinesis of these
swooping
speed skaters,
balancing the world
on the thin edge
of a blade, one stroke
at a time, in constant
torque,
turning gravity
into a play thing—
this is purified speed.
3
When a woman collapses
on the unwelcome bed of snow,
her body broken by the last
painful dig and pull
across the shifting dust,
you know she has died
to everything else in her
but the will to cross
that stain of red to the anthem
of the clanging crowd.
4
for Yuna Kim
And when she said softly,
that she was happy now
that it was over, this
when she had lost the gold,
and the bedlam around
her told her she was cheated,
I believed her, believed
her relief, her sense that
the weight of it all
was now gone, that the queen
unburdened of the stone
around her to tutor
her body through pain
and to carry the flame
of envy, anger, awe and fear
inside her, stoking it
for years and years
as a flame—that this was
over now, and all she felt
was relief, gladness, and peace—
when she said, I am happy,
it is over, I believed her.
And she, skateless,
mortal, grounded, she walked,
stuttering and ordinary,
away from the arena.
Epilogue
Closing ceremony
There is a boat,
there is a harlequin
there are children
there is the contraption
of our vanity—
the mechanicals
have arrived
and we cheer
the flying boat—
the ritual and pomp
the presidents
and prime ministers
with the cost of blood
in their heads,
the officials
dispensing weed
to calm our nerves
and the vanquished
and triumphant,
the significant
and insignificant,
the strings, the oboes,
the flutes, and the wash
of alarums from the horns;
we land, we land, we land.
그의 홈페이지를 소개한다.
© Kwame Dawes 2012
여기에도 이 시가 있다.
Yuna Kim of South Korea during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, Sochi, Russia,
20 February 2014. European Pressphoto Agency
...한국의 시인 찌끄레기들은 뭐하고 있나?
그저 신세 한탄의 글이나, 돈이 되는
힐링 나부랭이 시나 끄적거리고 있는가...?