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| Snowy Cat - Simon Rudd |
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks.
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring. |
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* Taken from Poetryfoundation newsletter
Even though this is my first time reading this author, her writing feels deeply familiar, as if I have known it for a long time. Perhaps because she writes about topics close to me such as cats and modern life. Her worries in the poem manifest in how she navigates daily life with her cat. In this poem I notice the cat serving as a leitmotif, she uses the figure of the cat to transition from Winter to Spring, from decay to renewal.
Atwood explores the lethargy of living, as seen in the opening lines: "Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey" She contrasts passivity with action, addressing the cat directly:
"Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here."
The contrast between winter’s inertia and the eventual arrival of spring mirrors an internal struggle whether to give in to despair or push forward. Atwood resists succumbing to depression, instead choosing to focus on optimism.
Inspired by the poem, I would like to elaborate a brief verse
Little white friend falling on my roof from the night
Cat who carries the knoledge of all in your claws
Let's find another way to celebrate this night
one far from the darkest hour before dawn.
I asked the IA ChatGPT to write his own verse also
Silent hunter, curled in moonlight,
your paws press secrets into the snow.
Tell me, does winter dream of spring,
or only of the hunger that lingers?
For the IA the central image of the poem is also the cat, the three of us agree on that: Margaret, Chatgpt and me. But I loved their question: does winter dream of spring? I find it very poetic to be an IA. Cool.
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Este es uno de esos poemas que yo considero más fácil de traducir, y no porque sea una tarea sencilla, sino porque hay otros con muchas mas figuras literarias, métricas, imágenes que dificultan una traducción. Sin embargo voy a traducir solo mi parte favorita del poema.
"Gato, ha sido suficiente de tus maullidos codiciosos
Y de tu pequeño y rosado trasero.
¡Fuera de mi cara! Eres el principio de la vida
Más o menos, así que ve
y trae un poco de optimismo por aquí
Deshazte de la muerte. Celebra. Haz tu primavera."
Aunque se pierde la métrica original, siento que pude conservar parte del ritmo de ese verso en específico, y la verdad no me representó demasiado esfuerzo como sí lo sería con otro tipo de poemas. Incluso el vocabulario que utiliza Atwood es bastante cotidiano y fácil de traducir. También siento que la idea principal y la imagen del gato se conserva en su totalidad al pasarlo del inglés al español. Me ha gustado mucho el ejercicio de hoy.
PD: Amo los poemas o cuentos que incluyen gatos. Aunque no mucho los de Murakami, lo siento comunidad hipster.
© JorgeRGalán 2025
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