D ori K atz

The poem is always a surprise. One doesn't choose what to write about; it comes, and it's a kind of discovery. That's the fun of writing," says Dori Katz, professor of modern languages, whose work includes not only poetry but many well-received translations of works by modern European authors.

      Her fascination with the play of language began early. Katz was born in Belgium, where she learned to speak Flemish and French. She added English after coming to the United States when she was 12 years old. "I started writing when I was a child," she says. "I don't remember what the impulse was, but I wrote a lot of things. I found a journal the other day that I wrote when I was ten, and there were some poems in there. I even wrote an opera!"

      Katz's ability with words was shaped and refined by her years at the University of Iowa, where she earned an M.F.A. and a Ph.D.  She joined the Trinity faculty in 1969 as an instructor in French and comparative literature and in 1975 became the first woman in the College's history to earn tenure.

      Her translations include three works by the noted author Marguerite Yourcenar, Fires, Plays, and A Coin in Nine Hands, as well as Writing the Book of Esther by Henri Raczymow. Katz says "The nice thing about translating is that it makes you a wonderful reader, a careful reader. I think it affects my writing because I am able to be a better reader of my own work."

      Her 1999 book of poetry, Hiding in Other People's Houses, was issued in a bilingual edition, with the poems translated into Spanish by Diana Valencia. The book is filled with memories of a childhood lived amid the dangers of German-occupied Belgium. Her father, who died in Auschwitz, appears again and again, as a face glimpsed in a newsreel film, as a name in a hospital file, in an old photograph. In discussing the work of other poets who deal with political and historical issues, Katz says, "When I read poetry that deals with terrible events like the Holocaust, it touches me in a way that nothing else can because it makes these events so profoundly human. It reveals something about them that I would not know through any other avenue." She, too, brings the wrenching displacements of history directly into our hearts with her simple evocations of loss.

      Katz continues to write about the war, but frequently turns to other subjects as well. The poems below came from her interest in the painter Rene Magritte and the writer Julio Cortazar. "I'm a great fan of Magritte," she says. "Perhaps he really speaks to me because he is Belgian." Of the Cortazar poem she says, "This story about a translator has always fascinated me." Katz notes that her own work as a translator kept her away from poetry for a while, "but right now I am back into working on poetry, and I am very happy."

 

BLOWING UP PEOPLE
inspired by the story "Blow Up" by Cortazar

 Tired of translating someone else's work,
on this Spring day, you are outdoors, camera in hand
but cannot find yourself in this old cathedral.

You have already caught the river going by,
a pigeon taking off, and the sun bouncing on the ground.
Now you are back to the park, watching
three people acting out an ancient play.
The boy is too young for the part, too frightened,
immature, in other words, just right--
a flashy scarf around his neck.  No mother
gave him that scarf; it's borrowed from a brother
old enough to drink and smoke, and come home late
to let him smell his fingers after sex.
The scarf, a signal that he is ready to venture
for himself, attracted them, the boy thinks.
But only pride now keeps him there.
The woman reminds him of a neighbor,
the one who buttonholes him on the stairs to complain
about the noise.  Her sandal straps are down for comfort,
her blouse is open at her throat, her dress is tight,
so that you'd like to put your head there,
let her stroke your hair, arouse you lazily.
But you must know about the man watching--the cadillac
as much his calling card as the diamond
you imagine on the pinky ring.  Already you smell
the after-shave cologne, observe the eyebrows plucked,
the cheeks discreetly rouged, enough for you to sneer.
And you go on to the next scene; indoors,
the wine and sweets, the giggling, the boyish tongue
lapping the glass, the tears, and who is fondling whom.
You snap and snap your camera until all three
notice you.  The woman looks at you, angry, the man leaves
his car, the boy runs off, scared pigeon at last;
everything vanishes.  You're in the dark,
printing your photographs, blowing up people,
but nothing clears, no meaning comes from aggrandizement:
you have kept yourself out of the picture.

MAGRITTE'S TWO TURTLE DOVES

on the painting "Deux tourterelles dans la chaude pénombre de leur maison."

The lion wearing the roses
of the woman he ate is bored by now,
thinking how much he gave up to have his picture
taken.  The man who lost his head
over the consummated woman would be all heart
but she stole that too.  Let's say he is all rib
cage inhabited by white turtle doves
because he was very gentle in love.
The turtle doves represent the couple
reunited on a higher level, if you wish.
The lion stands for himself, having abdicated
for art's sake.  Of the woman he has left,
not the bones to make music with,
but the eyes and lips that blow you a kiss.
The sky has been wallpapered; now no cloud
can overcast this brown beach, no rain
dampen the joyous red of the cage cover:
it used to be a Flemish cape
Magritte bought in Antwerp from gypsies.
The man's bag is packed.  He was on his way
when the photographer snapped him.

Although he must be very late by now,
his dinner waiting full of dust,
something about those eyes, the gay surrender
of the roses suggest he has not missed the boat.

 

THE BANNED REFLECTION
after the painting by Magritte

 He could be your own father still under banishment,
a kind of Orpheus you cannot turn around
whose look of tender grief must be imagined,
for to reveal his face would conjure someone,
and he is no one now. The mirror
shows us that the mantel has just been dusted;
the book that lies on it is shut, leaving
its hero Pym still in that frozen whiteness.
Night falls, his brown suit darkens.
Something you say, a half-intended gesture starts
him walking away; eventually you're bound to follow.