Poet Amina Saïd was born in Tunisia in 1953, to a Tunisian father and French mother. For Women in Translation Month, her “I live here in the basement of the Gare de Lyon,” translated by Marilyn Hacker, and twelve more:
She has lived in France since her late teens, and writes in French. She writes often of journeys, reinterpreting historical and mythological voyages, overlaying them with her own discoveries and encounters. She is the author of fifteen collections of poems in French, including Les Saisons d’Aden, Clairvoyante dans la ville des aveugles, and Dix-sept poèmes pour Cassandre. She has also published two collections of Tunisian folktales and translated Francisco Sionil José’s fiction from English into French.
Saïd’s honors include the Jean Malrieu Prize and the Charles Vildrac Prize. Australian composer Richard Mills incorporated her poetry into his work Songlines of the Heart’s Desire (2007).
The Present Tense of the World, a collection of Saïd’s poems translated and prefaced by Marilyn Hacker, was published by Black Widow Press in 2011. “I live here in the basement of the Gare de Lyon” appears with permission.
I live here in the basement of the Gare de Lyon
by Amina Saïd
translated by Marilyn Hacker
he says you’ll find me when you come back
and suddenly beneath the ash of neon lights
day was done before daybreak
your eyes stopped me he says
with a flame dying out in his own pupils
and dusk drowned itself suddenly
in the empty glass of his bottle
you speak several languages like me
he says you travel a lot
torture of the motionless traveler
and dawn died suddenly before dawn
I was born in Jerusalem… he smiles
I was born in Morocco, Salah, yes, homeless
you’ll find me here when you come back
and night was over before nightfall
thirty-two years I’ve been living in Paris
he says far from my mother’s prayers
darkness of failed departures
sun and sand churn in his memory
you come from somewhere else too he says
and the stones moan with absence
the earth stops turning
once yes once I also had a country
one can see in your eyes that you love life
he says… only a solitary smile
as a talisman for the soul
there are seven doors left to pass through
the seven doors passed and the thousand and one trials
perhaps we will be delivered
(if that makes any sense)
from the south of madness the madness of the south
from The Present Tense of the World,
Black Widow Press, 2011
*
Twelve more poems by Saïd:
“the seventh day of my birth” and seven more, tr. Hacker
from “Clairvoyant in the City of the Blind,” tr. Hacker
“Path of Light,” tr. Hacker
“The Mothers,” tr. Hacker
“I Introduce Myself to the World,” tr. Hacker
1 Comment
Comments are closed.