Swedish poet Judith Kiros’s widely-acclaimed debut stretches boundaries of genre, race, and gender in an alternative production of Shakespeare’s Othello that sidesteps black death for a multitude of futures.
Judith Kiros
Translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
Taking a cue from Derek Walcott’s Omeros, Kiros employs metric verve and critical bite to add to Shakespeare a wide range of historical and contemporary works, producing a meditation on blackness that sets up a new reflective surface at every turn. O marks the first translation into English of one of Sweden’s most thrilling young poets.
Snow Lessons
There are many types of ice: white ice, red ice, slick black ice. If only you’d learned to master the ice. If only you’d learned more about the work of translation. If only your parents had brought you out on the frozen lake in winter and taught you to watch out, little snail, watch out. If you hadn’t spun your hair so tightly around your middle finger in a custom-made fuck you. If you’d accepted the premise of the conversation. If you’d accepted the premise of social convention. If you’d learned to be happy in the midst of this unhappiness. If the very basis for that unhappiness could make you happy. If you’d realized that unhappiness is a word ill-suited to the context as it conceals the material basis of exploitation. If you’d spent more time thinking about care. There are many types of ice: blue ice, green ice, purple ice. Once an after has been introduced there’s not much more you can do about it. For example: after winter. For example: after industrialization. At this point before has turned into a different, unknown country. For example: before winter. For example: before fleeing one’s home. If you’d rinsed the chlorine out properly. If you’d curled up at your mother’s feet and let her comb your tangled hair. If you’d had a different attitude to home. If you didn’t have a tendency to go cross-eyed. If it were only about the eyes. If you’d been better at balancing and worse at doubting. If you’d rested when you slept. If you weren’t a fissure through which they can glimpse another layer of time. If someone, at some point, hadn’t traveled along a road. If the mountain hadn’t made part of your spine. If you could write without betraying everyone you love. If you could live without betraying everyone you love. If you could live. If you could dance over the ice with scalpels attached to your feet.
There are many types of ice: smooth ice, rough ice, sharp ice. One time you plucked icicles like cold fruits and pressed them against your mouth and tongue, one by one. When ice turns into water, the murkier aspects of translation become transparent again. If only you could get an overview of the situation. If it could be sim-ply summarized. If you could split yourself into your constituent parts. If you could stand without moving at all while the street-lights came on, followed by nightfall. If you could hide your dark continent. If that, despite everything, might have an effect beyond the individual. If anything you’re doing or will do could go beyond the individual. If at least you had some respect for the ideals of the Enlightenment. If you didn’t pretend to be so lonely. If you didn’t pretend to be so red so blue such purple ice. If you hadn’t taken her hand one summer and laid down beneath the willow tree.
Language Lessons
If it were only words that shook you thus. But not even on stage is it only words. On and on. If you shook up the words. On a partic-ular shade of purple being extracted from spiraling shells. If the repetition had less to do with the broken-apart sea, see my skin and my arms rippling like a wave, on and on again, I’ve dyed them navy. On receiving a gift in your childhood, a purple doll with foaming skirts, beneath them nothing, between her legs nothing, what a perfect wave of black nymph. On violet. Or on lavender. On being lowered into an ocean of colors. On your head being pushed beneath the surface, on and on again, to the tune of sea-shells knotting their purple insides. Don’t give yourself up for free; there is a point in talking back to the sea. On a particular shade of vague purple. On the way a shadow struts, violet, across the page. If Sweden is simply another sex tourist. If bitter berries produce better juice. On a childhood gift, Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits in actual Swedish, trembling hands raised to trouble the vastness of the ocean. On secretly being Laurence Olivier in blackface, the blacked-up doll he, too, and you, dancing with someone who loves you, a bitter little berry of a nymph. On the amount. On the sheer amount. If amounts could shake you. On how some words wanted to journey to Europe, but were dragged down into color, the weight of a color. Sea-colored in our natural manifestations. On holding your breath while they hold their applause. On a hand transforming into gradual salt. On never having been powdered with finely ground alabaster, on not knowing how to climb a tree, you know, they should’ve seen your karate. On the crowd peering at you through the barrel of their blue eye. On the curtain being drawn across the horror. On refusing to be, in any sense, a natural manifestation. On the horror, its insides coming out, on thick juice dripping from a sliver of the silver moon, oh my purple darling. On sweeter berries and blacker nights. On bitterer karate and fairer devils. On extracting each pigment and learning to hoard the rest. Cutting through a wave, powdered hair piled high, on continuously slamming against water. On being red and black with perfectly white teeth. On cutting through. On taking someone’s hand, red and black, each finger enough to explode and hold. On establishing this language with a trembling mouth, oh nothing but the ongo-ing catastrophe, my sweetest. On cute karate and blacker grins. On this this sea-colored love, these gathered tufts of hair, pulled from spiraling sea-shells like a shadow. On nights when the waves gather silver, when they reach for the moon’s maw, shove a finger inside and see if you exist. On meeting their gazes. On meetings, chance meetings. On standing on end like hair and quivering. On a black angel as a different angle. On how you might as well turn yourself inside out, burn this whole book and half the daughter, bitter as juice you emerge the victor. On resting in it and winning. On whether I want you to win.
