Contemporary Italian Poetry
Andrea Raos, Editor
Introduction
The youngest poet included in this anthology is Dante Alighieri, cleverly (mis-)quoted by Fabio Teti – the youngest among the living poets of my selection – at the beginning of his enactement of literary figuration collapsing in itself (something Dante might have approved, although probably not for the same reasons); Teti’s “smashing” (rather that well-behaved deconstruction) of poetry and syntax is possibly the most radical among those I’m presenting here, but not the only one worth attention.
I would like to stress two aspects that I believe to be common to all of the best Italian poetry of today as I tried to represent it in this selection: on one hand, the “bilingual” nature of these writers, in the sense that they all are equally proficient in verse and in prose; on the other, the fact that they all show an openness to foreign traditions (to the point that two of them, Giovenale and Zaffarano, wrote the texts for this anthology directly in English) that – at least in my experience – is not so common, in Italy or elsewhere.
It is commonplace to state the limits of any anthology and the impossibility to attain a fully reliable overview of any literary scene. Fair enough. But I hope at least that the curious reader, who might be induced by these poems to find out more elsewhere, will have been oriented toward some of the most fruitful trends in recent Italian poetry.
Gherardo Bortolotti
Gherardo Bortolotti (http://bgmole.wordpress.com) was born in 1972. In 2005, he published the e-book Canopo (Cepollaro E-dizioni). In 2007, he published the chapbook Soluzioni binarie (La camera verde) and the wee-chap tracce per dusie, 103-197 at dusie.org. In 2009, he published Tecniche di basso livello (Lavieri) and appeared in the anthology Prosa in prosa (Le Lettere). Together with Michele Zaffarano, he edits the “Chapbooks” series for Arcipelago Edizioni, that publishes experimental literature from France, Italy and USA. He maintained several blogs in Italian and English and was editor at GAMMM (http://gammm.org) and Nazione Indiana (http://www.nazioneindiana.com).
When the Aliens Arrived
Translated by Alessia Folcio
27. When the aliens arrived, they found us without a project, ready to access a further state of consciousness towards a higher stage of our indolence. While riots were spreading all over Europe, we used to hang out in crowds on Saturday. Our clothes were the only memories of a greater age, making a dull match with the clubs furniture, with the commercial implications of the people addressing us.
28. On the internet, newsgroups lingered on the same two or three topics, even though some quoted Singapore Economy Minister’s reports, rapeseed oil prices, the Congo crisis. After many weeks, on occasion of the interventions along Brazilian coasts, people started to believe that it was somehow all over. We found ourselves looking at the sky, waiting for a possible way out, while along the streets, among the early ruins, signs of our discontent remained uncertain.
29. Just in the end, bgmole realized how far and how lonely he was on the planet, after hundreds of years of almost undetectable migrations through abandoned suburbs, deserted residential areas, ruined shopping centres. He left desultory traces, anodyne writings, familiar objects. In some shelters he installed almost empty holographic memory devices, where he uploaded images, videos, recordings of his own voice declaiming lists.
30. Before sleep, just a few more words were left to say, expressions like “public domain,” “pandemic,” “Martian floods”. Our days after were following; the mornings’ and evenings’ events coming undone in spastic constructions, omens, new technologies suggesting an even deeper silence, a way out in extinction.
31. They abducted us in the suburbs where we had taken shelter, searching with dogs, motorbikes, groups of shouting beaters hitting us, in the backyards of detached houses, down the flights of underground parking lots. it was a dull strategy of terror but troops were inevitably lost in cycles of repetition compulsion, kept by methamphetamines and their uncertain cognitive abilities, and that could not been stopped even by lynching or revenge hangings.
32. Aliens’ silence was the deepest and their gaze was always chasing us, as if we were the unexpected event, the discrepancy in a framework, that had been creepily ordinary, so far.
Elisa Davoglio
Elisa Davoglio lives in Rome. Among her poetry publications: L’orlo di Galois, 2010 (La Camera Verde); Detour, 2012 (La Camera Verde); La lunga impazienza, 2013 (ChapBook — Arcipelago Edizioni). In prose Onore ai diffidati(2008, Mondadori).
Deveraun Seraun
Translated by Sean Mark
We are generally able to remember only seven digits and four or five letters or words:
these statistics refer only to our capacity for mental storage
without rereading information several times
he cold wrung our feet dry
the wet nurse had no milk
father teaches us to count
don’t let the numbers slip
he whispers sweets in pocket
quench thirst watching
water drip from cornices
waiting and dropping
rain like any other
marbles construct a course
that woodworms trace
and fingers muddle
The rules of the game are old as days
even after the war was done and we players
The eleven men for whom this night held no dawn ate a last supper of potato salad, sausage, cold cuts, black bread and tea
no longer needed to eat
our hair and hats and names and teeth
an offence to eat meat
The American colonel directing the executions asked the American general representing the United States on the Allied Control Commission if those present could smoke. An affirmative answer brought cigarettes into the hands of almost every one of the thirty-odd persons present.
The directing colonel turned to the witnesses and said, ‘Cigarettes out, please, gentlemen.’ Another colonel went out the door and over to the condemned block to fetch the next man
forget the marks
on the bark of the tree
are traces of insanity
from a corner of the net the signal rebounds
link stains to figures
give names to objects
in absentia
drafts from doors are (still) a drag
(good) memory wipes noses
rescues reasons for a snag in the moon
counts for what remains
The end of pleasure is pain
translates it more than six different ways
you were allowed to drink if you asked before
notes
The epigraph is an excerpt from the scientific definition of “memory”.
The quotations in italics on p. 2 are taken from ‘Time Magazine’, 28 October 1946, and ‘Nuremberg Goal’, 16 October 1946.
The quote in italics on p. 3 is the most probable interpretation of the exclamation “Deveraun Seraun!”, pronounced – presumably in Gaelic – by Eveline’s mother in “Eveline”, the short story in James Joyce’s Dubliners.
In the photos:
- A girl searching for members of her family at the end of the Second World War, in the Kloster Indersdorf refugee centre;
- Edda Goering, the daughter of Hermann Goering, eating an ice cream, 1951 (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images);
- An archive image from the “trial of the doctors”, Nuremberg, 1947.
Florinda Fusco
Florinda Fusco. Her poetry books are Linee (Editrice Zona 2001), Il libro delle madonne scure (Mazzoli 2003), illustrated by Luigi Ontani, Tre Opere (Oedipus, 2009), Thérèse (Polìmata, 2012).
From Lady with an Ermine
Translated by Giancarlo Rossi
They told me it was teatime and I sit as befits a considerate guest
here I am, gorgeously dressed up I wear my ironed skirt I put up my hair
(as if nothing were the matter)
men and women wearing big hats sit around the table
the living and the dead were all present
I was standing still in a corner there was a brocaded curtain
and in the middle the ermine fur coat-wearing Lady
on the table, a teapot and five silver-inlaid cups
the teapot falls down it slowly breaks into pieces
I dip my finger in the cup as if it were a chalice
there’s a blood clot on my finger (I hide it as befits a considerate guest)
I draw with my dirty finger some lines on the floor: a house
everyone is still in the blood-red house
the guests’ eyelids lower under the weight of the drawn walls
this is the day when I see and nobody can see me
as befits a considerate guest at a weak pace I open the blood-made door
and my foot crosses the threshold
Francesca Genti
Francesca Genti was born in Turin in 1975. She has published the poetry books Il vero amore non ha le nocciole (Meridiano Zero, 2004), Poesie d’amore per ragazze kamikaze (Purple Press, 2009), L’arancione mi ha salvato dalla malinconia (Sartoria Utopia, 2012), and the novel La febbre (Castelvecchi, 2011).
Two poems
Translated by Antonino Mazza
My Constructive Side
it’s my grandfather
he’s a surveyor
and in his hand is a blueprint
here he sets some trees
here a field of poppies
here three large pots
farther off the sea
he spreads gravel along the walkway
here he sets a house
inside, charcoal for Christmas
to the right a wood oven for the grilled meats
two benches for laughter
farther away other trees
then more poppies
farther still a cemetery
he takes the glue
he takes the ladder
climbs up to the sky
attaches the sun
climbs down the ladder
comes in from the balcony
over the bed
he attaches love.
(in the kitchen
the cardboard cartons of star
wait for him
each one smiles
inside its carton
they can’t wait
to be eaten).
My Destructive Side
it’s my grandmother
she goes to parties
and shatters her hands
she likes to gaze at
very strange landscapes
from desolate bridges.
she is very beautiful
and at important parties
great men
look her admiringly.
She sits alone
and in the setting sun
repeats obsessively
“it’s not the faires’ fault
if summer ends
with malicious fires
if stinging loves
reveal themselves to be roses”.
(with a few thorns
of an artificial color
with no plausible reason
to really hurt you).
Marco Giovenale
Marco Giovenale lives in Rome, where he works as an editor and translator. He’s editor of bina, Argo, Or, and several websites; he’s founder and editor of gammm.org (2006) and puntocritico.eu (2011). In 2011 he took part in the Bury Text Festival (Manchester); here are some links to the works read on that occasion: http://otherroom.org/2011/05/22/marco-giovenale-some-texts. His blog is http://slowforward.wordpress.com. Books in English: a gunless tea (Dusie, 2007) and CDK (Tir-aux-pigeons, 2009). Further bio notes here: http://slowforward.wordpress.com/bio/.
tmemore
tell me more about this. just tell me what you told, exactly, tell me what you told them. tell me more about your telling more to them to people asking you more. more than this. more or less. tell them what they want you to say. get those things told. told things, sad things. sad things to be told. tell them more about this. let them tell you more about these sad things. let things tell you more about them all. let them all pass. they all will pass. you’ll be alone with your sadness and pain. tell your sadness from your pain and tell them how sad you are and painful and willing to tell them all the things they don’t know. tell them more about this will. just tell me how much you are willing to tell them what they want to hear from you. tell me more about them. tell me more about telling them. ask people more and tell them more if you can. tell all of them what they all wanted to know but do not dare to ask. tell them more about you and your painful will in telling me you told them what i never wanted to know. i know. it is difficult. time passes and you cannot tell more than this. tell me how many years have passed. years of pain and sadness. tell me how it is difficult to stand here, talk with them, always telling them how to reach a point in which you may say yes i’ve told you what i knew and i have no more things to tell. or, better to say, i don’t have anything more to tell you. anything to tell. and i’ll tell you more: i don’t even know what you now know about what i told, and i know nothing about what i exactly told you. tell me what. if you don’t remember, don’t mind, but don’t forget. you say don’t forget what. i reply i don’t know. i forgot. i’ve just told you all i knew. now it’s your turn to tell me more. tell me more. i want to know. tell me you are willing to tell me what i want and really need to know from you. tell me about more people asking more and tell me more if you can about these people and their will. time just passes and i cannot know how sad you feel and how bad things go. i don’t even know what i know about what they told me talking about their will to tell me all they knew. i’m quite sure they don’t know all. this is why they came to me asking me tell us more. i’ll tell you more, i said, i’ll tell you all i know. more or less, i’ll tell you. sure. and started telling them all i knew and more. but the more i told the more they wanted to know, while they had to admit they didn’t know all, and yet needed to know more than all-all, at all, all at once. all in a while. while we were there we were just talking a little bit about how it was difficult. and still is. how could we tell each other all-all-all. all we knew i think was we were there talking while sound was rising and yet needed to rise more. tell us more, we told. about the telling, sure. about what. i agree i won’t tell you more
Andrea Inglese
Andrea Inglese was born in Italy in 1967. He lives in Paris. Some of his books of poetry are Prove d’inconsistenza, in VI Quaderno italiano (Marcos y Marcos, 1998), Inventari (Editrice Zona, 2001), Colonne d’aveugles(translated in French by Pascal Leclercq, Le Clou Dans Le Fer, 2007), La distrazione (Luca Sossella, 2008) and Commiato da Andromeda (Valigie Rosse, 2011). He also published some prose-works: Prati / Pelouses (La Camera Verde, 2007) then in the collective volume Prosa in prosa (Le Lettere, 2009) and Quando Kubrick inventò la fantascienza. 4 capricci su 2001 (La Camera Verde, 2011). As an essayist he published L’eroe segreto. Il personaggio nella modernità dalla confessione al solipsismo (Università di Cassino, 2003) and La confusione è ancella della menzogna (Quintadicopertina, 2012). His anthology of the French poet Jean-Jacques Viton, Il commento definitivo. Poesie 1984-2008, was published by Metauro in 2009.
Machines
Translated by Laura Solomon and Natalia Nebel
I wake in the night, and think:
“they must be there, it’s necessary that they are there”
and I set out, surrounded by darkness,
“it isn’t possible that they aren’t there,” and I look for them,
at night, I begin my walk, searching for them
one by one the machines of my apartment.
Fumbling I advance, aided by the smallest
machines, lighting up areas circumscribed by space,
I illuminate them, small or large shells become visible,
some mute, others delicately quivering
like eyelids, it’s enough to gently rest the tips
of fingers, the slightest, hot vibrations, the almost
organic internal oscillations of the mechanisms
most reduced, concentrated, in the back and deep within,
the motors, the fans, the circulation of liquids,
the pressure of the gases, I pass them all inspecting,
pointing the light, touching with fingertips
the machines of my apartment.
I look, at night, walking up and down,
even though I know their silhouettes by heart,
their configuration in corners, cupboards
in the cavities of the walls, the machines
little and big, active or inactive,
enwreathed, encircled, within good spiderwebs,
how they are keeping me alive, how they give me
life, how they disrupt my sleep, they,
in their quiet splendor, in clandestine
constant work, poisoning and keeping
alive, in poisonous life, life.
Giulio Marzaioli
Giulio Marzaioli hails from Florence but lives in Rome. His work includes the following titles: In re ipsa (Anterem Edizioni, 2005); Trittici (Edizioni d’if, 2008), Suburra (Perrone, 2009). In prose: Quadranti (Oedipus Editore, 2006; in France Mix Editions, 2010), Quattro fasi (La Camera Verde, 2012). He also writes for the theatre, and some of his work is published in the collection Appunti del non vero, Editrice Zona, 2006; he also writes for photography and video-art. He collaborates with “La Camera Verde” Cultural Centre, for which he has worked on several art books (including the photography book Cavare marmo, 2010, and La Concia, 2011).
Nocturne
Translated by Sean Mark
” In the hottest hour of the day, when the cicadas start to sing, she felt her weight fall clean away. ‘I didn’t even make it here in time’, and then was gone.”
” In the hottest hour of the day, when the cicadas start to sing, he remembered he’d been faster, chased her longer in the past. But then she’d stopped. So still and plant-like. Her smell was sweet indeed. While in shadows a lizard hid, she felt her weight fall clean away. ‘I didn’t even make it here in time’, and then was gone.”
you can contemplate sleep (you’re not sleeping) / you can sleep the sleep (you’re not contemplating) / you can weigh sleep (contemplating you from below) / (otherwise) sleep is / when (night) awakes (sleep otherwise)
“In the hottest hour of the day, when the cicadas start to sing, he remembered he’d been faster, chased her longer in the past. But then she’d stopped. So still and plant-like. Her smell was sweet indeed, at times she seemed to bend in the wind. While in shadows a lizard hid, she felt her weight fall clean away. The cicadas’ song reached highest pitch and the lizard left the shadows, turned its eyes to face the sun. ‘I didn’t even make it here in time’, and then was gone.”
they say (the force from below) held up (height) / from below (or rather) a feeling of weightlessness / on the bed (for example) you tell (once upon a time) the story / (feeling sleepless) is now (that once) upon a time (is now) / (missing) a story (is missing) / (didn’t they ever tell you?) tell (tell him a story)
“In the hottest hour of the day, when the cicadas start to sing, he remembered he’d been faster, chased her longer in the past. But then she’d stopped. Hunting is instinct, even for a god. That was the first time he felt his weight, realised he was on the earth. But the earth envies the sky, suffers for its gravity. And since then she’d stood, so still and plant-like. Her smell was sweet indeed, at times she seemed to bend in the wind. She began to age, and on earth they soon forgot she was alive. Until one day, while in shadows a lizard hid, she felt her weight fall clean away. The cicadas’ song reached highest pitch and the lizard left the shadows, turned its eyes to face the sun. It whispered to the plant: ‘I didn’t even make it here in time’, and then was gone.”
if night bends under the weight (or a light left on) / it casts a shadow (makes a difference) almost says / (darkness speaks) “as long as the darkness (long) remains”
“In the hottest hour of the day, when the cicadas start to sing, he remembered he’d been faster, chased her longer in the past. But then she’d stopped. Hunting is instinct, even for a god. That was the first time he felt his weight, realised he was on the earth. But the earth envies the sky, suffers for its gravity. And since then she’d stood , so still and plant-like. Her smell was sweet indeed, at times she seemed to bend in the wind. She began to age, and on earth they soon forgot she was alive. Until one day, while in shadows a lizard hid, she felt her weight fall clean away. The cicadas’ song reached highest pitch and the lizard left the shadows, turned its eyes to face the sun. It whispered to the plant: ‘I didn’t even make it here in time’, and then was gone.”
(from below) by height (base) the story / (emerging from the darkness) and (taking away) names names / for example (more) (less) speaking of the glass / half empty and ( “glass”, what glass?’) / we say “glass” (the thing made for) drinking / thirst not to be taken away (glass) “glass”, precisely
Laura Pugno
Laura Pugno was born in 1970 in Rome, Italy. Her publications include four novels, La caccia (Ponte alle Grazie 2012), Antartide (Minimum Fax 2011), Quando verrai (Minimum Fax 2009) and Sirene (Einaudi 2007); a short story collection, Sleepwalking. Tredici racconti visionari, Sironi 2002; and five poetry collections, La mente paesaggio (Perrone, Innumeri, 2010), gilgames’ (Transeuropa 2009), DNAct (Zona 2008), Il colore oro (Le Lettere 2007), and Tennis (Nuova Editrice Magenta 2001). Her website is www.laurapugno.it.
From The Color Gold
Translated by Craig Arnold
see the body that fences
see the body that fences,
it’s in the river:
it’s in apnea and there’s red vegetation
now that it slows down
every word and every language
all will move in the same way
*
you’re wearing overalls, white
luminescent, you make yourself
compact: you are a body
more now than any other body,
your face veiled and your perfect lips
and the walls are nylon,
the floors of the room, there are
serpentine cables on the ground: you’re there,
your presence is completely there
a body washing itself in a round tub, with river water
*
repeat that the vegetation’s red,
that runs along the banks and walls:
here in the woods,
or the domain of little statutes
you will get down on your knees,
white star,
moss emerges from the cuts of light
*
see the body, the same one
now disarmed: the moss is wetsuit blue
you are skin against the plate glass:
something that covers you like water,
visitor,
if the trunk of the trees is the color
of blue cars,
you’ve arrived
*
if they are tumbling
underwater,
chosen vessels,
bodies extremely youthful: arch
your back, your spine, your shoulders,
the white of the eyes: if they are
removing themselves
from this fencing, this
perfection
*
further on, if the language is shared
further on, if the language is shared, that
which is on the carpet,
the intermittent light:
enter the leopard, put
your hands inside the sculpture—sand
from this garden,
white stones,
that have a number or a name
put on a plastic pelt,
your leopard-colored eyes,
the same
as last night, will see in the dark
or else enter the wolf,
the green that surrounds it
drawing ever tighter, the exact
point where the light filters over the lake
*
open the black box
open the black box,
it contains forbidden
meat, turtle, dolphin:
this is what they eat since
the kingdom came,
the reef was invaded by this luminescence
if now is the hour of light,
you will shine,
cover your muscles with oil
in front of you on the ground
there’s a cloth light like gold
you could throw over your shoulders
Marilena Renda
Marilena Renda was born in Erice (Trapani) in 1976. She lives in Milan. She teaches, writes and translates. Her books are Bassani, Giorgio. Un ebreo italiano (Gaffi 2010) and Ruggine (dot.com press 2012).
Looking at some animals move in space
Translated by Enrico Sibilla
Looking at some animals move in space makes you wish you became a lightweight metal. Some women too inhabit it as if it had always been their home: this is why they plainly have the right to get into it, make it a place of their own, add some furniture, a bedspread, a carpet, a cabinet for their silverware, a frame with a photograph. Think about it and you’ll know that feeling like a lightweight metal is a thing worth experiencing, in a lifetime.
It’s not about finding a place and possessing it as if it were a foreign life, but rather about taking your own breath and smearing it all over your body, and then moving your body up and down like you’re an animal and nobody is watching you and there are no boundaries to what you can do with your body, and your body moves through the world and jumps when it feels like doing it.
Indeed, think about it, you may accept anything, even the death of those who were with you, or people having gone and disappeared, if you could once and for all feel your body has left its misfortunes behind and learnt a new and less demanding law.
What else? You may wander as if somewhere somebody were throwing a party and you were the main guest. Or you may eat and drink with all of your mouth, teeth and tongue like you were not scared of choking.
Or you may devour the body of another man and not think how painful it can be when just a few inches are left between your own two fleshes and each of you believes the other is the only place where they want to go, and you forgive the danger because danger – everybody knows that – can’t stretch beyond the doors it sees.
Fabio Teti
Fabio Teti was born in Castel di Sangro in 1985. He currently lives in Rome. He’s editor of gammm.org, puntocritico.eu, and eexxiitt.blogspot.com. His work has appeared in various journals, lit-blog and web-zines dedicated to new italian poetry, such as “Semicerchio”, “Nazione indiana”, “L’Ulisse”, “lettere grosse”, “Allegoria”, “Absolute Poetry”, “Alfabeta2”. The excerpt presented here, from the sequence in progress “with lesser paragraphs”, is drawn from the antology Ex.it. 2013 – Materiali fuori contesto (Tielleci, Colorno 2013), in which it originally appeared.
With Lesser Paragraphs
Translated by Diana Thow
But because it might seem fantastical to some to dwell on the passions and actions of such tender years, I will leave them, and passing over many things that might be derived from the sample from which these were taken, I will come to those words that are written in my memory with greater paragraphs.
Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova, 1.11
I have been made by an animal, a machine, a machine, an animal, how can I promise that I am in charge of everything? and if it is a poem that I have in my old circle of pain created by the death of a hair, I wrote but it’s the same also because of the sign wars: because I, at the same time, brings to death and it is left to implant without the various trappings, the applications, forgotten, for the expulsion of refugees of various titles in the quotidian nightmare of something burnt the spider of, truth, but never the web of the kingdom.
centripetal and thus in abstract and the inferior furrows on the plane, called astral, in which it’s the transitional gap or another formula that will suddenly excavate a panorama of celestial bodies and blood. prepare yourselves your own motion, in its place, but a chain, also human, and turn regardless not counting on that adjective, known to all, either better or worse. instead, we have a vague idea of the war and then become involved in a conversation on the street, and how extended or endorsed to a permanent extension of the diastolic and systolic pressure by your, small accounts controlled by the computers, over the eons, successfully.
at last, it was accepted, or it wasn’t. the people call him a human, or something similar, so long as he resembles one, for in the discoveries outside this removes something only only anthropomorphized but organized by science as true: is destroyed they created just think a cassette, for security, for the abuse of power and the simplicity of the bandwidth’s size. then some, of you or without returning to some water, do not remember anything at all of the tapeworm, nor of the fire: though, moral passion is a natural part of the body like the breast or the armpit of the fingers if left without prosthesis.
*
[…]*
this is the journey not the entire surface of bone matrix, I write it while I read it, the proof or the loss into the abyss of abscess began to leave: around the world of things, the amputectures, but also in the field of optics or the lock is cut off from the night and from the images of the sea: the ghost, which is located in the middle of two dark characters, congealed, may vary them, and it means that thunder is constantly evolving, in body language or in the inverse of the fog and filthy air another world with death, in words. but it is not certain to work here to create a reference point for those who believe that a story of characters, not even, that the characters and stay away from any reference to genre issues is ultimately similar to a question or a language: the protagonist of events is used, and in substitution.
otherwise, where I live, but no one knows the soldiers suitable for the success of his decease in aquatic plants, in shoe polish, the mood of bipeds of the place and then the stone: there is an urgent need for space, and even if they do, they still call it death, the presumption that it was true and that burned and collapsed, and other short formats suitable for an intestinal life. I just barely learned it let me know if I was. others, immediately, turned to anger, not the absolute silence of the practice of dying by violence, but definitely a fomite and also the memory of the uncertain time-world of physics, as if they can they say it. the inertia of the discourse functions it has an antenna on the roof, and is indulgent with spiders and even soft-soaped foams and re-swallowed sculptures from the night , a whole series of bones and a marked tendency to build up in the dark an electrocuted remnant. the advice is to leave little by little, the empty space destroyed by a boustrophedonic motion and objective and objective and boustrophedonic. I do not think that I know how to exist in the form of phrases or other parts of the body and abatement of cells (noting, in any case, this vision that enables the development of unforeseen glass)
*
and it is class warfare if you are not satisfied with just the pain: the whole pieces of I think, gone, to look over, gone, the truth in these things could be said under pressure but it is not in the truth that it is different. learn in ten moves to make a counter document see above, without resorting to the notorious or even going back to the black swallower that rises up from the deep seas. It was said that actions, since then, but no longer as dilemmas if then the tendons, punctuation, are resolved in loss in the moonlessness, of negotiations. in this sense it is radiopaque and obvious, it gives no option of escape: either ignore it or change it, but spirit is needed and an informed, thin cursor in the scraps. either another gesture or death, a site in order to enforce it then the following restrictions: knowledge through actions unknown to themselves, and so on, because the present is an alarm system, between hemispheres – also pollen, if you like, if such a worry is accurate, and curated, the misunderstood in everything and in the anthers, without warning: the whole world and as it is understood in landslides, you are in that mute and charred again both times: the floor and digging a hole where the next step didn’t know, nor if it were always again in fault.
Michele Zaffarano
Michele Zaffarano was born 1970 in Milan (Italy). He lives in Rome where he works as translator, mostly from French and English contemporary literatures (P. Alferi, S. Beckett, O. Cadiot, , J.-M. Espitallier, J.-M. Gleize, E. Hocquard, G. Perec, F. Ponge, N. Quintane, C. Reznikoff, D. Roche, C. Tarkos). His books: E l’amore fiorirà splendidamente ovunque (La Camera Verde, 2007), Il culto dei feticci nell’Italia contemporanea (La Camera Verde, 2007), A New House (La Camera Verde, 2008), Bianca come neve (La Camera Verde, 2009), Wunderkammer, ovvero come ho imparato a leggere (in: Prosa in prosa, Le Lettere, 2009 — collective work), Cinque testi tra cui gli alberi / Five Texts, Trees Included (translation by Damiano Abeni, Benway Series, 2013). Videos: Le vacanze della Camera (2012), Hamlet in the Dark Pt.II (2012), S. O. (2012).
Four Times Repeated Passion
1
the closer we’re drawn to the stronger the force
the closer will be a field become so theoretical
we’re drawn to passion theoretical
the force field will be the pressure compelling
eventually pressure compelling to protect us
against the force field itself to protect us
against the force field will eventually
protect us compelling the pressure of
the closer field
will become the stronger the closer
is the stronger against the force field will be
eventually become the stronger field the closer
even theoretical field the closer the press
the pressure of the closer field the force field
compelling to protect us the force field itself
compelling to fill the closer
the force field itself to protect us
drawn to pressure against
the force field itself against the stronger
force field even theoretical force field
stronger pressure to us compellin’ to
be drawn to passion
force field
pressure
itself
to protect
itself
pressure
force field
drawnin’ to
2
you have got the cold do you
stay away from what you have got
do you keep away from it
have you any here
in here you have
we have
cold we will have
off the cold in here
off the cold in
we know how the cold is
to be
to keep away
the cold
it’s going to get colder
it’ going
down to reach
him
the cold we reach in getting closer
the cold
but you think out there
but you think in here
but we won’t get any colder
just to reach him
but we don’t have any idea of
pretty soon
it’s going to get colder
out here
trying
we shouldn’t be
we really shouldn’t be out here
out there
but pretty soon you think we won’t have pretty soon
out there trying to reach trying to have
it’s getting cold
it’s going
we can stay away from it
it’s going to get colder
but we won’t
but
pretty soon
we really shouldn’t be
it’s getting cold
we really shouldn’t be
it’s getting cold
him out there we really
trying to reach him
we can
it’s going to get colder
to get colder
out here
in here
it’s going to get colder
but you think we can just turn away
it’s getting cold in here
3
well
we can make it
we can rest for a while
we need to keep walking
we feel that it had presented
all the evidence
there’s plenty of fluids to aid recovery
keep
your promises
you need to rethink
your argument
4
the closer we’re drawn to the stronger the force | the closer will be a field become so theoretical | we’re drawn to passion theoretical | the force field will be the pressure compelling | eventually pressure compelling to protect us | against the force field itself to protect us | against the force field will eventually | protect us compelling the pressure of | the closer field | will become the stronger the closer | is the stronger against the force field will be | eventually become the stronger field the closer | even theoretical field the closer the press | the pressure of the closer field the force field | compelling to protect us the force field itself | compelling to fill the closer the force field | the force field itself to protect us | drawn to pressure against | the force field itself against the stronger | force field even theoretical force field | stronger pressure
to us compellin’ to
drawnin’ to passion
force field
pressure
protect
itself
5
isn’t it a beautiful house
you can try to be beautiful
just as your house is beautiful
out there you can try to be
beautiful you can do anything out there
you can bend time and space
you can turn both space and time inside out
thanks to your beautiful time and space
you can reach time through space
spending time bending space making day-trips
in the countryside you can stay by your house
your beautiful house
your house is like the other beautiful houses
out there on the hill
your house is so far away from the sea
you can reach your beautiful house on the hill
you can be closer
you will become closer
you will become closer and closer
eventually they will become closer too
6
pressure of the sun to protect you
against yourself
the closer we’re drawn to it the stronger
the force field will become
so that
the pressure
will eventually induce the pressure
of the black sun to protect us
against itself
the closer we’re drawn in
the stronger the pressure of the
force field
the pressure of the black sun
will protect us
against ourselves
the closer you are drawn in
the stronger the force field will become
so that theoretically
the pressure of the force field
will eventually force the
the pressure of the closer field
generates protection you will be
protected as pressure will force
you to become closer
as pressure will force you
to protect yourself
from passion
will force you
to protect yourself from
pressure
from passion
will force you to draw yourself
to passion
Andrea Raos (Italy, b. 1968) has published Discendere il fiume calmo, in Poesia contemporanea. Quinto quaderno italiano (ed. by F. Buffoni, Milan, Crocetti, 1996), Aspettami, dice. Poesie 1992-2002 (Rome, Pieraldo, 2003), Luna velata (Marseille, CipM – Les Comptoirs de la Nouvelle B. S., 2003), Le api migratori (Salerno, Oèdipus, 2007), Prosa in prosa (Firenze, Le Lettere, 2009 – collective work) and I cani dello Chott el-Jerid (Milan, Arcipelago, 2010). He has a Ph.D. in classical Japanese poetry and has translated various Japanese, American and French poets. Some of his poems, translated into English by Kathleen Fraser, have been published in “The New Review of Literature” (vol. 5 no. 2 / Spring 2008) and in “Aufgabe” (no. 7, 2008). Others can be read at http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/3540/24/Andrea-Raos(translated in part by Sarah Riggs and in part by Abe Casper) and http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Spring_2012/poems/A_Raos.html (translated by Natalia Nebel).