A menudo el Premio Nobel ha evitado premiar autores que fuesen demasiado populares, que vendieran demasiados libros. Claro que otras veces ha hecho todo lo contrario. Como ocurre con la Lotería Nacional, el premio suele estar bastante repartido (por criterios étnicos, religiosos, continentales, etc.). Este año quizá tocaba dárselo a un varón blanco con muchas ventas. Como Philip Roth o Milan Kundera están descartados para la Academia, la lista no era tan larga. Y puede que tocara poesía en lugar de prosa. Ahí estaba entonces la opción de premiar a Robert Allen Zimmerman. Homero, como el resto de aedos con los que comienza la historia de la poesía en Grecia, acompañaba sus recitaciones de un instrumento musical parecido a la cítara. La poesía nació para ser cantada. Es por ello que sorprenden las dudas, revuelo o críticas que el galardón de la Academia sueca suscita entre algunos. A Zimmerman, se le premia por "haber creado nuevas expresiones poéticas". Como en tantos ámbitos de la vida, en esto del Nobel puede decirse que no son todos los que están ni están todos los que son. Jorge Luis Borges o Bertolt Brecht, clásicos absolutos del pasado siglo, no lo recibieron. En el pasado (o quizá no solo en el pasado), a menudo la política ha interferido en este y en muchos otros premios culturales. Pero para saber si la poesía de Zimmerman merece la pena, habremos de leer inglés con fluidez. Sus versos tienen un aire marcadamente clásico, una musicalidad palpable que se asienta sobre larguísimas estrofas minuciosamente rimadas.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what'll you do now my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singing
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Una traducción aquí.
