Italian Poetry Review, XV, 2020 by Società Editrice Fiorentina

Italian Poetry Review

Department of Italian

xv, 2020 Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

Società

Editrice Fiorentina

italian poetry review Flaming in the phoenix’ sight William Shakespeare

We are happy to dedicate once again this issue of “Italian Poetry Review” to the memory of the quintessential poet and lover of poetry, the expatriate Alfredo De Palchi (1926-2020), as well as to the memory of two great Italian American intellectuals: the poet and great translator Joseph Tusiani (1924-2020) and the brilliant writer and critic Robert Viscusi (1941-2020). This three authors conclude a whole period in the history of Italian and Italian American writing in the United States.

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Acknowledgements This issue of «Italian Poetry Review» is published with the generous support of the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Charitable Foundation and with the generous contribution of Mr. Thiraphong Chansiri and his family. The journal depends for its existence on subscriptions and donations. In the USA all contributions and donations are tax-deductible. «Italian Poetry Review» would like to thank all the subscribers who have offered their gracious support.

ringraziamenti Questo numero di «Italian Poetry Review» è pubblicato con il generoso finanziamento della Sonia Raiziss-Giop Charitable Foundation e con il generoso contributo del Signor Thiraphong Chansiri e della sua famiglia. La rivista dipende per il suo sostentamento da abbonamenti e donazioni. «Italian Poetry Review» desidera ringraziare tutti gli abbonati per il loro prezioso sostegno.

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Columbia University Department of Italian

The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America

Centro Studi Sara Valesio Fordham University Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

Italian Poetry Review

Plurilingual Journal of Creativity and Criticism

volume xv, 2020

Società

Editrice Fiorentina

Editor in Chief / direttore responsabile Paolo Valesio, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University Associate Editor / condirettore Alessandro Polcri, Fordham University chief Managing Editor / caporedattore Steve Baker, Columbia University Managing Editors / comitato di redazione Patrizio Ceccagnoli, University of Kansas Amelia Moser, Italian Poetry Review Graziella Sidoli, Advisory Board, Centro Studi Sara Valesio Annafelicia Zuffrano, Università di Bologna

For contributors / per i collaboratori

Italian Poetry Review is an international double-blind peer-reviewed journal and is a ‘Class A’ Journal according to the ANVUR classification (Agenzia Nazionale di Valu tazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca). Those who are interested in proposing material for publication in «Italian Poetry Review» should send their texts to the following address: «Italian Poetry Review» è una rivista internazionale double-blind peer-reviewed ed è una rivista di classe A per l’Area 10 - classificazione ANVUR (Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca). Tutti coloro che sono interessati a collaborare con «Italian Poetry Review» possono inviare i loro contributi a: Italian Poetry Review c/o The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America Columbia University - 1161 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 - USA email: italianpoetry@columbia.edu

Advisory Board / comitato scientifico Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia University Susanna Barsella, Fordham University Francesco Bausi, Università della Calabria Diego Bertelli, Université de Fribourg Alberto Bertoni, Università di Bologna Luigi Bonaffini, Brooklyn College, City University of New York Francesca Cadel, University of Calgary Peter Carravetta, State University of New York at Stony Brook Alessandro Carrera, University of Houston Nicola Crocetti, Editor of «Poesia», Milan Giuseppe Episcopo, St Andrews University Amerigo Fabbri, formerly, Yale University Fabio Finotti, University of Pennsylvania David Freedberg, Director, The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America Guido Mattia Gallerani, Università di Bologna Giuseppe Gazzola, State University of New York at Stony Brook Paolo Lagazzi, Literary Critic and Essayist, Milan Giuseppe Leporace, formerly, University of Washington Ernesto Livorni, University of Wisconsin Simone Magherini, Università di Firenze Raffaele Milani, formerly, Università di Bologna Mario Moroni, Binghamton University Francesca Parmeggiani, Fordham University Joseph Perricone, Fordham University Davide Rondoni, Founder of the Centro di Poesia Contemporanea at the University of Bologna Massimo Scalabrini, Indiana University Victoria Surliuga, Texas Tech University Jane Tylus, Yale University Alessandro Vettori, Rutgers University

Columbia University department of Italian & The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America 1161 Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10027 usa tel. (212) 854-7396 / fax (212) 854-5306

Italian Poetry Review Vol. xv 2020

Contents / Indice

crestomazia minima 9 testimonianze / Testimonials Paolo Valesio, Il ritrovamento (Alfredo De Palchi 1926-2020) 21 poems / poesie Domenico Segna, Onde radio 57 Giovanni Strocchi, Socrate il cinico 69 Viviana Fiorentino, from Trasferimenti 73 Davide Castiglione, from Doveri di una costruzione 79 Grazia Frisina, A chiusa voce 87 Giorgio Papitto, Poems 97 Antonello Borra, from Erbario 101 Nicoletta Grillo, Poems 107 Caterina Davinio, Poems 113 Franco Dionesalvi, Poems 115 Barbara Carle, Poems 117 Giovanni Lovisetto, from Scavi urbani 121 TRanslations / Traduzioni Antonio Fogazzaro, Author’s Preface and Selected Poems from «Valsolda», translated by Samuel Fleck 127 Paolo Valesio, Il poeta naturale 147 Salvatore Jemma, Una picciola nota 151 Robert Penn Warren, Rumor Verified (Poems 1979-1980), translated by Salvatore Jemma 152 Adele Bardazzi, «Maybe nothing is an elegy»: Victoria Chang’s «OBIT» 183 Victoria Chang, OBIT, translated by Adele Bardazzi 190 Graziella Sidoli, Nota a Corrado Calabrò, «Poems» 217 Corrado Calabrò, Poems, translated by Graziella Sidoli 220 Teresa Carson, Visit to an Extinct City, translated by Steven Baker 234 Joshua Lollar, Figures, translated by Patrizio Ceccagnoli 266

Anne Hébert, Le tombeau des rois (La tomba dei re / The Tomb of Kings), 1953, translated by Christine Valerie Bourgois and Patrizio Ceccagnoli 277 Amal Bouchareb, Poesia algerina «Diwàn» dell’Universale 283 Najwan Darwish, Ašūr Fannī, Qaddūr Rahmānī, Amar Meriech, Yusuf Ouaghlisi, Poems, translated by Jolanda Guardi 286 Martina Piperno, Translating Bassani in English 301 Giorgio Bassani, Poems, translated by Martina Piperno 306 Cristina Viti, Nota a «Centro Alzheimer» 327 Pasquale Di Palmo, Centro Alzheimer, translated by Cristina Viti 328 Graziella Sidoli, Nota 349 Florencia Lobo, Poems from «El lento deambular de las tormentas», translated by Graziella Sidoli 350 Simone West, The Later Poetry of Franco Fortini 367 Franco Fortini, Poems from «Paesaggio con serpente» (1984), «Composita solvantur» (1994), «Poesie inedite» (1997), and unpublished poems, translated by Simon West 372 Vijay Seshadri, from Wild Kingdom, translated by Filippo Naitana 392 Corrado Govoni, Poems, translated by Paula Bohince 396 Alessio Zanelli, Five Poems, translated by Angela D’Ambra 400 Poetology and Criticism / Poetologia e Critica Silvia Marcantoni Taddei, I confini del pensiero. Geografie lessicali nelle prose di Valerio Magrelli Adriano Fraulini, Valentina Maini e l’illuminante predominio dell’analogia in «Casa rotta» Guglielmo Aprile, Un’ardua semplicità. Antieloquenza e ascetismo della parola nel percorso poetico di Caproni Alberto Comparini, Poesia, filosofia e post-poesia. Una lettura de «Il numero dei vivi» (2015) di Massimo Gezzi Maria Borio, La limba, l’historia e le identità post-umane. Una lettura di «Historiæ» di Antonella Anedda Caterina Verbaro, Il “passo a due” della poesia. Riflessioni su «La gloria della lingua» di Daniele Piccini

413 429 453 469 489 501

review-articles / recensioni-saggi Sonia Caporossi, Andrea Zanzotto: la natura, l’idioma Anna Maria Tamburini, Per un ricordo di Margherita Guidacci nel centenario della nascita

515 527

reviews/recensioni Alessandro Niero, Tradurre poesia russa. Analisi e autoanalisi (Mattia Acetoso) Umberto Fiori, Il Conoscente (Donatella Bisutti) Cesare Viviani, Ora tocca all’imperfetto (Elio Grasso) Paolo Valesio, La Mezzanotte di Spoleto / Midnight in Spoleto (Kenneth Gross)

545 549 553 554

Donatella Bisutti, Storie che finiscono male (Francesca Orestano)

559

Books Received / Libri Ricevuti 565 Note Cards / Schede images / immagini Le opere pubblicate in questo volume sono di Giuseppe Palumbo

571

Crestomazia minima passages selected by Paolo Valesio

• Una ragione c’è, abita nell’alterità dei luoghi. La trovi nelle pubblicazioni occasionali, rare e invecchiate, nelle pagine sepolte in scantinati di musei, in fogli ingialliti tra i faldoni, in testi tradotti e abbandonati in paesi lontani, mai visti e toccati, nelle corrispondenze smarrite e casualmente ritrovate, nei cataloghi di mostre infilati in ponderose monografie, nei carteggi sopravvissuti ai traslochi, nelle dediche per eventi fausti e infausti, nelle distrazioni dei giorni vacui in cui spuntano parole inattese o nelle maniacali conversazioni mai chiuse; sono le lande incolte e remote dove stanno voci dal segreto tuttora vergine. Voci toccate per un attimo e poi perse, cocci e frammenti col sentore labile delle levità sottomesse al presente. Una sequenza di nomi così fuori dal canone da diventare vera From the editorial by Carlo Alberto Sitta to the poetry journal «Steve», 51 (Spring-Summer 2018) • After a descent during which I had to utilize without a halt the late light of a dying day, I stood on the edge of a meadow, now sure of the safe way, and let the twilight come down upon me. Not needing a support and yet willing to accord my lingering a fixed point, I pressed my stick against a trunk of an oak tree. Then I felt in twofold fashion my contact with being here, where I held the stick, and there, where it touched the bark. Appearing to be only where I was, I none-

theless found myself there, too, where I found the tree. At that time dialogue appeared to me. For the speech of man, wherever it is genuine speech, is like that stick; that means: truly directed address. Here, where I am, where ganglia and organs of speech help me to form and to send forth the word, here I “mean’” him to whom I send it, I intend him, this one unexchangeable man. But also there, where he is, something of me is delegated, something that is not at all substantial in nature like that being-here, rather pure vibration and incomprehensible; that remains there, with him, the man meant by me, and takes part in the receiving of my word. I encompass him to whom I turn From Martin Buber, Daniel: Five Dialogues on Realization [1913], as quoted in Thomas J. Farrell’s blog of June 21, 2018 [The occasion is the 2018 reprint of Maurice Friedman’s 1964 English translation of Daniel from the German] • Un sistema è una spiegazione dell’insieme e indica un’opera compiuta; un metodo è un modo di lavorare e indica un’opera da fare. Io ho voluto lavorare in un certo senso e in un certo modo, niente di più. Il problema è sapere se il modo funziona A statement by Hyppolite Taine (1828-1893), in 1866, as quoted in a book review in «Il Sole 24 Ore», June 9, 2019

10 crestomazia minima • Milch: One tries to adjust to these rigors and disciplines as they reveal themselves, as the day unfolds. At one level – the level of vanity, I suppose – there’s a shame that shows itself as anger, an anger that is quickly internalized as unfair to the disciplines and ambitions of the exchange in which I’m involved at that moment. And I try to adapt to that because it’s a distraction from what the invoked purpose, the proper purpose of that exchange is […] I try to think of an interior logic to things. Exploring that interior and kind of walking around inside it. And, for better or worse, finding things as I go, so that it’s a kind of exfoliating logic that I’m pursuing […] [Speaking of his Yale teacher, Robert Penn Warren:] He was a teacher, but he was always also a searcher. He was respectful in sharing the pursuit and you felt you mustn’t fail to bring anything but your best attention and respect for the transaction. You had the feeling that there were two spirits residing in a holy place. And there was an absolute lack of self-consciousness to the process. A mutual absence. You felt that you must suppress everything irrelevant or distracting. […] Singer: I wonder whether there’s an overlap between that sort of profound respect and the recognition you came to later, in A. A. [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings, about a higher power. Milch: Yes. You had in his presence an effect of a continuous unfolding. It wasn’t so much an unfolding of a truth as it was of a passion, or that there was some higher power that had become present as a result of a shared effort. And the presence needed to be acknowledged or the exchange could not be understood. The great blessing of Mr. Warren’s presence was a rising up in one’s heart of the desire to acknowledge that shared experience. Singer: Before this, were you someone who had preoccupying fears? Milch: No. Singer: And now what it is you’re are afraid of, if you could identify it? Milch: I intuit the presence of a coherence in my life which I haven’t given expression to in an honorable fashion.

Singer: So this is an opportunity. Is that what you’re are saying? Milch: Yes. […] Singer: Do you think about the future? Milch: In a very constricted way. I have disabused myself of any thought of a normal future, but I allow myself a provisional optimism about the possibilities of what time I will be allowed. And I’m determined to experience what life will allow me. I know I have a short while possible to me, but I don’t want to constrict or profane that with recrimination or a distorting bitterness From the article-interview by Mark Singer on the television writer David Milch, who talks about the progress of his fatal illness, in «The New Yorker», May 27, 2019 • Is it easier to remember pleasure or does hurt ease truest hunger? From Yusef Komunyakaa, The Body Remembers, as forwarded by «Poem-a-Day», April 1, 2019 • I listened, smiled, and asked questions – these were my most tiresome traits, and I used them tirelessly. Each encounter was a test I set up for myself: How long could I get people to talk about themselves without remembering of asking me a question? I had no stories to share. I had opinions, and yet I was as stubborn as Bartleby. I would prefer not to, I would reply if asked to remark on other people’s stories The narrator-protagonist is speaking, in the short story All Will Be Well by Yiyun Li, «The New Yorker», March 11, 2019. • «Esprimerti il mio amore nell’innocenza del mio terrore, non è forse lasciarti tutta la mia anima? […] Non è una missione angelica per un essere sofferente distribuire gioia intorno a sé, per dare ciò che egli non ha? Ti lascio agli infelici» (from the last letter of Madama Jules to her husband) […] È impossibile giudicare la religione cattolica, apo-

Crestomazia minima

crestomazia minima 11 stolica e romana, finché non si è provato il più profondo dei dolori, piangendo la persona adorata che giace sotto il cenotafio […] Siete arrivati alla sublime idea dell’infinito, e allora tutto tace nella chiesa. Non si dice una parola; anche i non credenti non sanno cos’hanno From Ferragus, one of three novellas that are part of the novel Storia dei Tredici by Honoré de Balzac; translated from the French by Barbara Besi Ellena; italics in the original • And shall we not […] Reach upward to some still-retreating goal, As earth, escaping from the night’s control, Drinks at the fount of morning like a god? From the poem The Mortal Lease, by Edith Wharton, as transmitted by «Poem-aDay», February 18, 2019 • [A pianist is playing in a private residence:] Aveva l’aria di una danzatrice o di una ginnasta, impegnata in un esercizio fisico, un corpo a corpo con quel qualcosa d’immateriale che era di sicuro prodotto dal suo strumento, e che sembrava però piuttosto una proprietà, diventata improvvisamente percepibile, dell’ambiente in cui, sovrana, lei si situava. In effetti è tipico della musica rendere di colpo visibili lo spazio e il tempo come se si mostrassero nel vuoto e vi facessero apparire la geometria immateriale su cui poggiano, le linee di forza cui si rapportano i fenomeni e che rappresentano l’architettura primaria dell’universo […] Si dice: la propria vita. Come se ne avesse una sola. Mentre ce ne sono varie che coesistono comunicando a malapena tra di loro. Ecco perché lo stupore improvviso di amare, quando lo si prova in una delle tante vite, non allevia minimamente il peso del dolore che in un’altra ci schiaccia. Centinaia di storie si svolgono contemporaneamente, si fondono senza tuttavia perdere nulla di ciò che le rende uniche e singolari e nessuno saprebbe stabilire nella moltitudine che formano quale dica il vero più di tutte le altre. Ognuno di noi resta così prigioniero del racconto che a sua insaputa

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

scrive e che contiene in sé ogni sorta di trame nessuna delle quali vale più di un’altra From the novel Piena (in the original: Crue) by Philippe Forest, translated from the French by Gabriella Bosco • È strana questa volontà di fare un bilancio, di convincersi, nel momento estremo, di aver vissuto; o forse no, forse è il contrario a essere terribile e strano, è terribile e strano pensare a tutti quegli uomini, tutte quelle donne che non hanno niente da dire, che non vedono altro destino futuro se non quello di dissolversi in un vago continuum biologico e tecnico (poiché le ceneri sono tecnica; anche quando sono destinate solo a servire da concime, vanno calcolati i tassi di potassio e azoto), insomma a tutte quelle persone la cui vita si è svolta senza incidenti esterni, e che la lasciano senza pensarci, come si lascia un periodo di vacanze appena decente, senza peraltro avere idea di una destinazione ulteriore, solo con la vaga intuizione che sarebbe stato preferibile non nascere, in pratica mi riferisco alla maggior parte degli uomini e delle donne […] io cominciai a parlare senza neanche avere piena coscienza di ciò che dicevo, avevo la sensazione di scivolare su un piano inclinato, era sconcertante e un po’ stomachevole, come ogni volta che ci si tuffa nel reale, anche se è una cosa che nella vita non succede spesso […] In realtà Dio si occupa di noi, pensa a noi in ogni istante, e a volte ci dà direttive molto precise. Questi slanci d’amore che affluiscono nei nostri petti fino a mozzarci il fiato, queste illuminazioni, queste estasi, inspiegabili se consideriamo la nostra natura biologica, il nostro statuto di semplici primati, sono segni estremamente chiari. E oggi capisco il punto di vista di Cristo, il suo ripetuto irritarsi di fronte all’insensibilità dei cuori: hanno tutti i segni, e non ne tengono conto. È proprio necessario, per giunta, che dia la mia vita per quei miserabili? È proprio necessario essere così esplicito? Parrebbe proprio di sì From the novel Serotonina (Sérotonine) by Michel Houellebecq, translated from the French by Vincenzo Vega [These lines are the interesting conclusion of an irremediably confused novel – PV]

12 crestomazia minima • I wrote this poem at the end of 2016 […] I remember there were a lot of words in the air at the time, rhetoric zinging back and forth on how to fight, resist, right and wrong ways to be, etc. – and maybe in response a part of me was craving a quieter version of myself, to be a conduit and hold channels open without falling prey to (or simply reflecting back) the anxieties around me/us. Playing with ‘-ist’ and ‘-est,’ and the placement of stanzas were further ways for me to contemplate sound and the extremities of language, as well as the slippery ease with which we create hierarchies of meaning by how we configure words From the commentary by Dao Strom to her own poem, Instrument, as forwarded by «Poem-a-Day», June 7, 2019. [There is an interesting similarity – although of course the spiritual contexts are very different – between this short meditation and the famous prayer traditionally attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: «Lord, Make me an instrument of Your peace»etc. – PV] • I am a body of knowledge, not of chemical compounds. Which is to say that I live as ideas do From the self-commentary of Billy-Ray Belcourt to his prose poem NDN Homopoetics, as forwarded by «Poem-aday», January 31, 2019 • Assieds-toi à une terrasse de café; regarde couler ce flot de visages. O faces déshonorées! «Jusqu’où ne descendrai-je pas?». Cela est inscrit sur tous ces corps prostitués […] Tu t’éveilles, et d’abord tu cherches la place de ta douleur pour t’assurer que tu existes. Elle est là, fidèle comme la vie; elle va régner sur toi jusqu’à la nuit, pareille au soleil sur cette journée déjà torride […] Le cœur ne vieillit pas en même temps que le corps. La stupeur que nous donne parfois la vue de notre visage dans un miroir vient de ce que nous ne voyons pas toujours notre corps lentement détruit, mais qu’en revan-

che nous sommes toujours en contact avec notre cœur qui ne change pas […] Le monde est plein de ces retours de flamme que l’on ne connaît pas. Il n’y a pas de grande presse, pour les événements de l’ordre spirituel. La veritable histoire n’est pas racontée […] De toute notre littérature, se dégage cette affirmation que l’amour humain s’altère, se corrompt et meurt dès que les amants prétendent renoncer au martyre d’être séparés […] La vraie souffrance du chrétien ne consiste pas, comme je l’insinuais, à ne pouvoir suivre en paix sa convoitise. Il n’existe pour lui qu’une douleur, selon le mot de Léon Bloy, c’est de ne pas être un saint. La connaissance de saintes vies éveille dans le chrétien une honte et une tristesse qui ne vont pas au désespoir mais à l’amour […] Perdre la foi dans les créatures aussi irrémédiablement que d’autres perdent la foi en Dieu, voilà le péril […] Le Christ n’a pas seulement vaincu la mort, il a vaincu la solitude humaine From the double essay by François Mauriac, Souffrances et bonheur du chrétien (The Sorrow and the Happiness of Christians. [Apropos of “notre cœur qui ne change pas”: clearly Mauriac is echoing Saint Paul: “But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4: 16) – and in fact Paul is even more optimistic than the French writer: rather than simply not changing, the “inward man” (or the heart) “is renewed day by day” – PV] • A quale mondo appartiene il mio teatro? Se fosse un elemento – terra, acqua, fuoco, aria – sarebbe il mare. Non conosco l’arte di rimanere a galla da solo. Allora cerco la mano di un altro – un individuo disperato, fiducioso, ambizioso o ingenuo, ferito profondamente o che vuole scappare da sé stesso. È un individuo pronto a spingere il mare insieme a me verso quel muscolo che pompa sangue From the “Note” by the theatre director Eugenio Barba to the piece Una giornata qualunque by the dancer Gregorio Samsa, directed by him and Julia Varley, and performed by the actor-dancer Lorenzo Gleijeses (at the Triennale Teatro dell’Arte, Milan, January 2019)

Crestomazia minima

crestomazia minima 13 •

•

Ma donde vengono i filosofemi seri, mistico-politici? L’entusiasta manifesta la sua vita superiore in tutte le sue funzioni; dunque egli filosofa più poeticamente, e precisamente con maggior vivacità degli altri […] Dall’opinione pubblica dipende il comportamento dello stato. Nobilitare quest’opinione: ecco l’unico fondamento della vera riforma statale. Il re e la regina possono e devono essere il principio del sentimento pubblico. Non esiste più monarchia dove il re e l’intelligenza dello stato più non coincidono. Per questo il re di Francia era detronizzato già molto tempo prima della Rivoluzione

Ma nonostante tutto non bisogna mai nemmeno considerare la possibilità di accusare un’intera nazione, un intero popolo, un’intera collettività, qualunque essa sia. Non credo nel concetto di colpa collettiva. Non credo che una comunità, qualunque essa sia, che un popolo, qualunque esso sia, debba, possa essere accusato dei crimini che alcuni hanno commesso. Per concludere, vorrei citare le parole di un amico che non ho conosciuto, che ho potuto soltanto leggere: Albert Camus. Egli afferma, credo verso la fine della Peste, «che ci sono negli uomini più cose da ammirare che da disprezzare». E dirò lo stesso a proposito del tema di oggi: ci sono negli uomini più cose da celebrare che da disprezzare

From Novalis [Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg], Fede e amore ossia il re e la regina, in La cristianità ossia l’Europa, translated from the German by Ervino Pocar • […] cette disposition de ma nature à basculer aisément d’une extrémité à l’autre, ou plutôt à me trouver ensemble à une extrémité et à l’autre (car, bien que la lutte entre l’orthodoxie et le jansénisme ne soit pas le débat principal de ma pièce [Le Maître de Santiago] encore y-est elle). Si, penseur, vous proclamez le “Tout est vrai’, on vous traite d’affreux dilettante et sceptique. Si, dramaturge, vous en êtes imbu, on vous félicitera, ou du moins vous vous féliciterez vous-même, de pouvoir faire parler tous vos personnages avec une force égale (ainsi firent, et peut-être parce qu’ils avaient une telle disposition, les tragiques grecs: chez eux, le dernier interlocuteur emporte toujours l’assentiment du public) […] Qu’il serait beau que l’âme pût être, sans passion, ce qu’elle est dans la passion! Car alors elle est dénuée de vanité, impétueuse, dure, prête à tous les sacrifices et à toutes les générosités; ingénieuse aussi, imaginative; par-dessus tout énergique, follement énergique. Un homme peut employer pour sa passion une telle énergie, drainer pour elle si à fond ses ressources, qu’il en demeure épuisé pour tout le reste. Le monde le croit un mol apathique, et il est un monstre de volonté – mais dans un domaine que le monde ne connaît pas From Henri De Montherlant, Note i and Note iii to Le Maître de Santiago

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

From a 1999 speech by Elie Wiesel, as quoted in Danilo Breschi’s blog, January 26, 2019 • Pensano che i miei lavori siano deprimenti mentre io parlo di speranza. Per me la funzione del teatro è quella di far sperimentare una cosa attraverso l’arte in modo che non ci sia più la necessità di sperimentarla effettivamente nella vita reale. Se sperimentiamo in teatro, come pubblico, quel che significa commettere un atto di violenza estrema, magari ne proveremo una repulsione tale da impedirci di andare a commettere un atto di violenza estrema fuori nelle strade. Io credo che la gente possa cambiare, e credo sia possibile cambiare il nostro futuro, ed è per questo che scrivo quello che scrivo From a statement by the British playwright Sarah Kane (1971-1999), as printed in the handbill of the Italian version (at the Teatro Out Off, Milan, January 2019) of her last play, 4:48 Psychosis. [Kane’s version – streamlined, strong and compassioned – of the Aristotelian concept of catharsis leaves open the question of whether all this may be possible without going beyond the purely human level – PV] •

14 crestomazia minima Sto notando che troppo sovente la mia frase prende una forma interrogativa. Ci si può porre (ecco, ci risiamo) simili domande? […] Per uno che si realizza come genio o come mistico, cento vengono chiamati per spingerlo con i loro vagiti verso il suo grido […] Rileggo le ultime righe scritte ieri e mi vengono molti dubbi. Prima di scrivere non rifletto e mi sembra sempre di pensare solo con la penna in mano. In ogni caso non so mai quale dei pensieri che maturano in me uscirà dalla punta della penna quando la poso sulla carta From Diario di un delicato (Journal d’un délicat), di Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, ed. Milo De Angelis • Dirò che mai mi sono proposto di fare il singolare. Di gente singolare il mondo è pieno From a statement by Carlo Carrà, in one of the captions of his exhibit at Palazzo Reale in Milan, January 2019 • Dal momento in cui è diventato usuale affermare che noi siamo gli unici artefici della nostra esistenza, una tale follia ha coinciso con l’uccidere la parola destino – con cui la parola Dio si identifica. E soltanto se c’è un destino l’istante ha corposità, è valore, è “funzione” di qualcosa From Il senso di Dio e l’uomo moderno, by Luigi Giussani • Poems are a communication far beyond the words they are made of – a dog’s language, a future, or a shovel digging toward those who have just gone, or are long gone, or are simply the breath of a spirit who knocks on the door and wants to come inside, sit for a minute, drink a cup of coffee, and tell us where they’ve been From the self-commentary of Samuel Ace to his poem, I hear a dog who is always in my death, as forwarded by «Poem-a-Day», January 10, 2019

• Even in your high eighties, whoever you are, you need to keep reading and rereading unless you are an original philosopher or an adept of the contemplative life. I am neither. The poets, dramatists, novelists are necessary if I am to get through my remaining days Harold Bloom [1930-2019], in his book, Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of Criticism [About this important testimony, one wonders: Where do critics fit in? Perhaps among the strong readers, like Bloom? Or perhaps among the adepts “of the contemplative life”? – PV] • J’ai toujours écrit, tout le temps, depuis l’âge de 12 ans. J’ai commencé à cette époque où les enfants de la bourgeoisie notaient ce qui leur passait par la tête. C’est une expérience un peu bizarre, devenue assez étrangère aujourd’hui, que Sartre a bien décrit dans Les Mots [1963]. Au début, vous notez des banalités, bientôt ce que vous écrivez devient intéressant, et vous finissez par découvrir qui vous êtes. Moi, je notais tout, les choses de la vie quotidienne, la visite d’un oncle, la naissance d’une amourette – Bref, je suis encore de ceux qui ont été faits par l’écriture. J’étais saisi par des idées, toutes ces idées sont restées très concrètes pour moi. Aujourd’hui, j’ai 218 carnets, classés par années The French sociologist Bruno Latour, as quoted in an interview in «Le Monde», June 1, 2019 • [Il diario] è lo spazio dove chi scrive anche snocciolando i fatti giornalieri li annoda a una certa dose di irrefrenabile, spesso angosciosa interrogazione sul loro senso, sulla loro importanza o al contrario sulla loro futile transitorietà. Insomma il diario classico, per dirla in maniera enfatica, era uno specchio dell’anima, con tutti i suoi flebili bagliori e le sue massicce ombre, una specie di libro sapienziale dove cercare la decifrazione dei segreti del proprio cuore. Naturalmente ci sono state diverse forme di diario: quelle che pro-

Crestomazia minima

crestomazia minima 15 cedono come una narrazione piuttosto ordinata di eventi, quelli che sono una coerente somma di pensieri, e invece i diari pulsionali, che raccolgono frammenti di vita in un continuo confronto tra l’interno e l’esterno From a book review, on a volume of journals by Susan Sontag, in «Il Sole 24 Ore», October 28, 2018 • Un racconto lungo e dettagliato offriva l’ordito: su quello veniva stesa una fitta trama fatta di dialoghi nitidi e incisivi. Da lì potevano sortire ugualmente, senza che niente ne marcasse preventivamente il destino, una sceneggiatura o una pièce. Con questo metodo, seguito per molti decenni e più volte rivendicato, Ingmar Bergman ha dato vita a grandi capolavori cinematografici e a testi drammaturgici ingiustamente meno conosciuti […] un tesoro custodito dalla Fondazione Bergman, l’ente a cui il regista consegnò nel 2001 una sterminata raccolta di taccuini, appunti, bozze, lettere, soggetti, note di regia, articoli e saggi. Custoditi con riserbo fino alla morte dell’autore, questi testi sono stati da allora decifrati e catalogati a partire dal loro nucleo più prezioso, costituito da sessanta quaderni di lavoro che hanno accompagnato ininterrottamente l’attività creativa e il vissuto quotidiano di Bergman dal 1938 al 2001 From a book review, on a selection of articles and essays by Ingmar Bergman, in «Il Sole 24 Ore», November 11, 2018 • I’ve embraced that I’m working toward a poetics of desire, and desire bears obsession. When an animal comes into my sight, I obsess: What is it about this particular beast, and how can I make it mine? There is a belief that we’ll meet five soulmates in our lifetime. I (figuratively, of course) placed five moths in my body to discover how their instincts play into mine The commentary by Carly Joy Miller about her poem, Five Moths, as forwarded by «Poem-a-Day», March 6, 2019 •

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

E tuttavia anche il credente, convinto che i morti vivono in eterno, non riesce poi a districarsi nel tentativo di dare una qualche forma e consistenza a quella realtà di cui afferma l’esistenza. E d’altro canto, il negatore di un’altra vita, che si batte per difendere e salvare la propria illusione, non è forse più vicino alla verità di colui che si accontenta di riaffermare, come un fatto che non può essere negato, la risurrezione dei morti? Come dimenticare quel grido veramente degno del libro sacro: «Celeste è questa / corrispondenza d’amorosi sensi, / celeste dote è negli umani»? Davvero, il credente che “sa” che la persona amata è ancora viva lassù, si trova più vicino a Dio di colui che si abbandona a questa «corrispondenza d’amorosi sensi», a questa capacità di far vivere il vivo in comunione col morto, e il morto accanto al vivo? From an article by Luigi Pretto on I Sepolcri by Ugo Foscolo, in «ilSussidiario.net», March 5, 2019 • There was a reserve in him that discouraged familiarity – not that I tested it, ever. I rather gladly accepted it as the necessary secretiveness of the great poet, on who must have taught himself early not to talk in prose, loosely and at random, of things that he knew how to say much more satisfactorily in the condensed concentration of poetry. Reticence may be the déformation professionnelle of the poet. In his case, this seemed all the more likely because much of his work, in utter simplicity, arose out of the spoken word, out of idioms of everyday language – like “Lay your sleeping head, my love / Human on my faithless arm.” This kind of perfection is very rare […] Where such fluency is achieved, we are magically convinced that everyday speech is latently poetic, and, taught by the poets, our ears open up to the true mysteries of language From a 1975 essay by Hannah Arendt on Wystan Hugh Auden, reprinted in the Archival Issue of «The New Yorker», December 3, 2018 • «I mean, that’s ridiculous», she said cheerfully. «Who lives a hundred years? So I never

16 crestomazia minima believed it. If they have a party for me at a hundred, then I’ll be a hundred. I’m not objecting. But I’m not going to stay that way. After all, the year keeps going, and I’ll keep going along with it, and next year’s going to be a hundred and one, and then a hundred and two, and pretty soon I’ll be a hundred and five, and then what are they going to do with me? They’ll put me on a fence post and say, look at that lovely lady, she lived a hundred and five years and nobody knows why, so we’re trying to find out why. What’s the point of living all that long if you can’t live it? And I don’t think I ‘ve been living it. I am just existing. And when the time goes by and I say, Yeah, another year passed, and I’m a hundred and two, a hundred and three, a hundred and four, and then what? What number do I have to reach before something changes? Do I have to go a hundred and ten, and then be something else? Or what? What’s it all for? That’s the question I’m asking, and I can’t get any answers»

grande bellezza. Ma non è possibile entrare senza infrangere la parete esterna: operazione dolorosa, anche per chi la infrange, poiché questi ferisce anche se stesso. Ma, infranta la prima parete, la luce interna brilla di un rosso ardente con nuovo fulgore. Così egli infrangerà successivamente molte pareti, procurandosi ferite ancor più profonde. Non farà però come chi rompe cinicamente un bel vaso e poi si allontana come se la cosa non lo riguardasse. Le sue ferite diventano sempre più profonde, fino al momento in cui si trova davanti all’ultima parete: attraverso di essa egli intravvede già la luce, e gli sembra che se la infrange, la luce stessa si spegnerà. Eppure occorre che infranga anche quest’ultima parete; solamente a questo prezzo potrà trovare l’intimità più profonda dell’amico, la Trinità divina. Il mio amico è come una dolce aurora dell’eterno amore di Dio. In questo consisterà tutta la beatitudine del cielo (March 4, 1959)

A woman who is turning one hundred in a nursing home, as quoted in Larissa MacFarquhar’s essay The Memory House, in «The New Yorker», October 8, 2018

From Egied Van Broeckhoven [1933-1967] L’amicizia. Diario di un gesuita in fabbrica, 1958-1967, ed. and transl. (from French versions of the Dutch original) by Emanuele Colombo et al.

• Si dice della memoria del dolore. Ma essa è breve al confronto della memoria della vita e dell’umile gioia d’essere. Ecco la benigna natura […] Che tutto questo non sia stato invano! From the passages out of the novels by Corrado Alvaro chiselled on his memorial in Reggio Calabria. (The first passage is from Un treno del Sud, the second from Tutto è accaduto) • Non esiste autentico amore di Dio senza assenso incondizionato alla morte […] la morte è Dio Frère Luc, one of the nineteen monks massacred (Spring 1996), and now beatified, in Algeria; as quoted in «ilSussidiario.net», December 11, 2018 • L’amico è come una casa di diamante: al suo interno brilla una luce sfolgorante e di

• She [his Russian mother] had never approved of his taking German in college. He was majoring in computer science, a practical course of study, and had no time to waste. Besides, he had the gift of native English: that sprawling, absurd language sh’ed spent half her life trying to learn. But Kiril had always loved German, which had a name for everything. One morning, at the beginning of class, the professor had brought in an illustrated dictionary with the parts of animals, plants, and various machines written auf Deutsch. He still remembered the picture of a car, deconstructed, every piston and lever lovingly identified. English seemed fuzzy in comparison: a wide blanket, full of holes […] «I am playing the piano», he [the teacher] said, pressing the keys, «I am playing some Schubert: ‘Der Erlkönig.’ You can hear it?» […] He played for a minute without speaking: high, bitter chords, like someone breaking ice with a hammer. «That is the wind again», Claire said. «I can hear it». Kiril felt a pleasurable

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crestomazia minima 17 pain move up his spine. He thought of cool wind in the branches in Herbst: the season with the correct name, but only in English. Now the song was over, the ice-chords fading to silence. «I do not need to tell you what happens», the teacher said. «You know.» «The boy dies», Wanda said. «Natürlich», Claire said, the last, clustered consonant a whisper. «But it is so, so beautiful», Kiril said. The teacher nodded. He closed the cover. From outside came the sound of sudden rain From the short story The Intermediate Class by Sam Allingham, «The New Yorker», April 2, 2018. [The italics belong to the original text and denote the utterances of the teacher and the students when they are speaking in German] • When Annie flirted, she didn’t always admit to herself that she was flirting. Sometimes she preferred to suspend her mental faculties so that she could flirt, as it were, without her mind watching. It was as if her body and mind separated, her body stepping behind a screen to remove its clothing while her mind, on the other side of the screen, paid no attention From the short story Capricious Gardens by Jeffrey Eugenides • Mais qu’est-ce l’attente, sinon une sorte de folie, et qu’est-ce que la folie, sinon une sorte d’espoir? […] Or, les femmes, qui font si bien la guerre indirectement, sont toujours moins habiles et moins fortes quand il s’agit d’accepter une bataille en face […] Rien ne peut m’être plus agréable, cher ami, que de retourner dans ma solitude, sous mes grands arbres, au bord de la Loire. Si Dieu est le suprême médecin des maux de l’âme, la nature est le souverain remède […] Or, l’imagination est la ressource ou plutôt le supplice des bons coeurs. En effet, jamais il n’arrive qu’un bon coeur se représente son ami heureux ou allègre. Jamais le pigeon qui voyage n’inspire autre chose que de la terreur au pigeon resté au logis […] Tout ce que vous dites arrivera: les rois perdront leur prestige, comme per-

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

dent leur clarté les étoiles qui ont fait leur temps. Mais lorsque ce moment viendra, Raoul, nous serons morts, et rappelez-vous bien toujours ce que je vous dis: En ce monde, il faut pour tous, hommes, femmes et rois, vivre au présent; nous ne devons vivre selon l’avenir que pour Dieu […] L’horloge en sonnant l’heure indiqua seule combien de minutes avait duré ce voyage douloureux fait par leurs âmes dans l’immensité des souvenirs du passé et de des craintes de l’avenir […] Le comte ne parlait à personne, disons-nous, il ne parlait pas même seul. Sa pensée craignait le bruit, elle touchait à ce degré de surexcitation qui confine à l’extase From the novel Le vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas • Quando il sole brilla e il cielo è chiaro – pensò il Signor Dudron – ci sembra che le nostre sventure siano più profonde. Sulla scala invisibile drizzata nell’azzurro insondabile noi montiamo come su una scala tesa verso un gioco di trapezi, e da lì spingiamo lontano i nostri sguardi sul mondo e sulla vita, che noi dovremmo piuttosto chiamare nostro mondo e nostra vita. Su quella altalena ineffabile noi ci lanciamo nel vuoto, e a ogni slancio il vuoto ci prende allo stomaco, e la vertigine contrae i nostri sensi; sempre più alto avanti ed indietro, e sempre più in fondo, avanti ed indietro. Gli anni passati e gli anni futuri, tutto questo non è che follia; misura del tempo! Ma quando nelle mie ore di insonnia ascolto verso la fine della notte i pesanti carri della nettezza urbana che si fermano davanti alle porte di casa per portare via l’immondizia, allora, qualche volta, tra quei rumori, sento come un lontano eco d’eternità From the novel Il Signor Dudron by Giorgio De Chirico [italics in the original text] • Il Pascoli fu mio compagno di collegio. Stava assai appartato dagli altri compagni, e nelle ore di ricreazione leggeva sempre e faceva versi. Ricordo che, quando si era in campagna, solo, girava su e giù per i grandi

18 crestomazia minima prati e pareva un pazzo. Lo chiamavano il poeta. Aveva scatti nervosi, e nella sua stranezza, era sempre assai buono A remembrance by Count Gherardi of Urbino; from a caption in the Casa Pascoli Museum, in the town of San Mauro Pascoli • I daydream of picking open a tabernacle with a wiry hair from my beard & a hairline sliver of silver to gorge on my crisp God, half-hoping Christ tries to intercede. The Bible tells me: “anyone who does evil hates the light,” & no matter how brightly I bite back, the Bible never changes its mind. Lord, help me to discern the difference between persistence & insistence, indulgence & rigor in every laugh, & the two chords my clavicles ring when plucked. Help me grin through their high pitch twangs, the way a good father listens to his child learn to play the violin From the poem This Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Peter Twal, in «Poem-a-Day», September 13, 2018

El mar se alzó, rompió la puerta Y vino directo a ti Arrastrado bajo el agua, te rindes La lucha cesa inmediatamente Y vas a la deriva con los restos Muerto, sin hundirte aún en el mar La gente habla de tu dignidad y tus derechos First part of the poem Tsunami by Hai Nan, translated by Germain Droogenbroodt; from the Newsletter «Point Editions», September 11, 2018 • [On the entrance to a night club]. Il aperçut un petit carton imprimé sur lequel il lut: Finish the night at «Picratt’s», The hottest spot in Paris. Le peu d’anglais dont il se souvenait lui permettait de traduire: Finissez la nuit au «Picratt’s», L’endroit le plus excitant de Paris. Excitant n’était pas exact. Le mot anglais était plus éloquent. L’endroit le plus “chaud” de Paris, le mot chaud étant pris dans un sens très précis. From the novel Maigret au «Picratt’s», by Georges Simenon

•

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Note Cards Schede

Mattia Acetoso is Associate Professor of Italian at Boston College. He received a PhD in Italian Literature from Yale University in 2012. His monograph Echoes of Opera in Modern Italian Poetry: Eros, Tragedy, and National Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) examines the influence of opera and opera librettos on modern Italian poets. His research focuses on twentieth-century Italian poetry, Italian contemporary cinema, and literature of exile. He has authored articles on Umberto Saba, Carlo Levi, and Renato Poggioli, among others. Guglielmo Aprile (Naples, 1978) has authored essays on medieval and modern Italian literature that have appeared in academic journals. His most recent poetry collections include Farsi amica la notte (2020) and Teatro d’ombre (2020). He currently lives in Verona. Steven Baker has translated poetic works by Pier Paolo Pasolini and Carlo Porta, as well as scholarly essays on Walter Benjamin, Anna Maria Ortese, Italian Fascism, and Phenomenology. For the Centro Primo Levi he translated Gianna Pontecorboli’s Americordo: The Italian Jewish Exiles in America (2015) and Giorgio Bassani’s New York Lectures and Interviews (2016). He is currently adjunct assistant professor in

the Department of Italian at Columbia University and teaches in the Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies at NYU. Adele Bardazzi is Extraordinary Junior Research Fellow at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford. Her scholarship focuses on lyric poetry (especially elegy), discourses of mourning and loss, and the cross-fertilization between the verbal and the visual. She is the author of Eugenio Montale: A Poetics of Mourning (Peter Lang, 2021) and co-editor of A Gaping Wound: Mourning in Italian Poetry (Legenda, 2022) and Gender and Authority across Disciplines, Space and Time (Palgrave, 2020). She is also working on a translation of Victoria Chang’s OBIT. Donatella Bisutti is a poet, writer, translator and journalist. She has published several award-winning collections of poetry including Sciamano (2021). She is the founder of the journals Poesia e Spiritualità and Poesia e Conoscenza and has been a Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation. Paula Bohince is the author of three poetry collections, and her translations of Govoni have appeared widely in the US and UK, receiving awards from «Southwest Review» and «The Massachusetts Review». She was the

574 note cards 2020 John Montague International Poetry Fellow at University College, Cork. She lives in Pennsylvania. Maria Borio is a poet and literary critic. She holds a BA and a PhD in Italian literature. A selection of her works entitled Vite Unite appeared in the XII Quaderno italiano di poesia contemporanea (2015). She authored the collections L’altro limite (pordenonelegge-lietocolle, 2017) and Trasparenza (Interlinea, 2019). She is the editor of the poetry section of the journal Nuovi Argomenti, previously directed by Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini. She has written on the poetry of Vittorio Sereni and Eugenio Montale, and her most recent monograph is Poetiche e individui (Marsilio, 2018). Antonello Borra is a poet, translator, and scholar. He is professor of Italian Language and Literature at the University of Vermont. His most recent books are Guittone d’Arezzo. Selected Poetry and Prose (2017) and the bilingual poetry collection Fabbrica delle idee. Monologhi dei matti. / Factory of Ideas. Monologues by the Mad (2019). His poems and translations have appeared in many journals and magazines including «Ecozon@», «Gradiva», «In forma di parole», «Italian Poetry Review», «L’immaginazione», «Nuovi argomenti», «Poesia» and «Steve». Amal Bouchareb (Damascus, 1984) is an Algerian author and translator, who taught in the English Department of the École Normale Supérieure in Algiers from 2008 to 2014. She was editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Aklam. She is the author of award-winning short stories and novels. She translated many Italian authors into Arabic. In Italian she published L’odore (2018), the winner of the Festival International de la Littérature et Livres de jeunesse (FE-

LIV) 2008 in Algeria, and L’anticonformista (2019). Her novel Il bianco e il nero is coming out with Edizioni le Assassine (2020). She has been living in Italy since 2014. Christine Valerie Bourgeois is Assistant Professor of French at the University of Kansas. A Montrealer by birth and a medievalist by training, her article on the influence of the Old French tradition on Anne Hébert’s prose, “La Quête inachevée. Le sang sur la neige dans Kamouraska d’Anne Hébert Le Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes”, is forthcoming in Florilegium. Corrado Calabrò (Reggio Calabria, 1935) served, among other positions, as Assistant to Prime Minister Aldo Moro (1963-1968). A scholar of Labor and Administrative Law, he was also President for 2005-2012 of the Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AgCom). Beginning in 1960 he published more than forty collections of poems, including Una vita per il suo verso (2002) and La stella promessa (2009). He holds several honorary degrees and has received numerous literary awards. Sonia Caporossi (Tivoli, 1973) is a teacher, musician, poet, literary critic, digital artist, and scholar in the fields of aesthetics and philosophy of language. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies. Her most recent publications, include Taccuino dell’urlo (2020), Le nostre (de)posizioni (2020), co-authored with Enzo Campi, and Opus Metamorphicum (2021). She curates a series of classic authors for the publisher Marco Saya and serves on the jury for the literary competition organized by the festival «Bologna in Lettere». She lives near Rome. Barbara Carle is poet, translator, and critic. She is professor of Italian at

Note Cards / Schede

schede 575 the University of California, Sacramento. She has written many critical articles and prefaces on poetry and translation. She has authored three bilingual books of poetry, one volume of poetry and prose in Italian, and translated many books of poetry, the latest being Emblems of Sleep and Other Poems, by Marco Vitale (critical preface by Carle, 2020). A new revised edition of her book Tangible Remains/Toccare quello che resta, (first edition, 2009) is forthcoming. Teresa Carson holds MFAs both in Poetry and in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including My Crooked House (2014), which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and The Congress of Human Oddities (2015). She co-curates two programs aimed at fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations and putting art into public settings: “The Unbroken Thread[s] Project” and “Art in Common Places”. She frequently contributes reflections on poetry on the “CavanKerry Press” blog and in a weekly “poem blast”. She lives in Florida. Davide Castiglione (Alessandria, 1985) teaches Literature and Linguistics at Vilnius University in Lithuania. His book, Difficulty in Poetry: A Stylistic Model (2019), grew out of his doctoral dissertation on the problem of difficulty in Anglo-American poetry. He has published several articles and manages a site dedicated to poetry. He is the author of two poetry collections: Per ogni frazione (2010) and Non di fortuna (2017). The texts in this issue of IPR belong to a still unpublished collection provisionally entitled I doveri di questa costruzione. Patrizio Ceccagnoli is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Kansas. In 2013, he translated two

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

books of Milo de Angelis in one volume, Theme of Farewell and After-Poems (with Susan Stewart). His translation of Anne Carson’s Economy of the Unlost was published in 2020 as Economia dell’Imperduto. Victoria Chang is a writer and editor who earned an MFA from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Her collections of poetry include OBIT (2020), Circle (2005), winner of the Crab Orchard Review Award Series in Poetry, Salvinia Molesta (2008), The Boss (2013) and Barbie Chang (2017). She is a contributing editor of the literary journal Copper Nickel and a poetry editor at Tupelo Quarterly, as well as a contributing editor for On the Seawall. She is the Program Chair of Antioch University’s low-residency MFA Program, as well as co-coordinator of the Idyllwild Writers Week. She lives in Los Angeles. Alberto Comparini (PhD, Stanford University) is Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Freie University in Berlin and assistant professor in comparative literature at the University of Trento, Italy. His research focuses on the relationship between philosophy and literature, with particular attention to the morphology and history of literary genres. Winner of the Pavese Prize for Literary Criticism (2018), he has published various monographs and edited volumes, including Geocritica e poesia dell’esistenza (Milan, 2018) and is the curator of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Twentieth-Century Italian Literature (Heidelberg, 2018). Najwan Darwish (Jerusalem, 1978) is one of the most refined voices in Palestinian and Arabic poetry. He is a journalist, literary critic and editor of the cultural supplement of the journal «Al-Araby Al-Jadeed» (The New Arabia). Author of several poetry collec-

576 note cards tions, he has been translated into more than ten languages. His major works include Bussava all’ultima porta (2000), Un giorno mi alzerò (2012) and Non sei un poeta a Granada (2018). His anthology in English is entitled Nothing More to Lose (2014). He has obtained several awards both in the Arab countries and abroad. Angela D’Ambra translates postcolonial poetry from English into Italian for such journals as El Ghibli, Poetarum Silva and JIT, among others. She has also translated poetry books by Canadian authors G. Geddes, G. Sorestad and S. McMaster, for Impremix. Caterina Davinio (Foggia, 1957) is a poet, novelist and performer with a special interest in digital poetry. Her novels include Sensibìlia (2015). She has also published essays like Virtual Mercury House and a volume of poetry entitled Fatti deprecabili (2015). Franco Dionesalvi (Cosenza) is a poet, writer and journalist. His book The Valley of Thought was published in Stony Brook, New York. His collection Black out is part of Luci di posizione – Antologia del realismo terminale (2017). His most recent poetry publication is Base Centrale (2020). He has also published two novels: La maledizione della conoscenza (1999) and L’ultimo libro di carta (2020), and an essay, Diritto alla cultura e politiche culturali (2008). Pasquale Di Palmo (Lido di Venezia, 1958) has published various poetry collections, including Trittico del distacco (2015). His poems have appeared in various anthologies and journals and have been translated in several languages. His essays include Lei delira, signor Artaud. Un sillabario della crudeltà (2011). He also curated and translated various literary books including volumes on Artaud (Album Antonin Ar-

taud, 2010), Corbière, Daumal, d’Houville, Gilbert-Lecomte, Huysmans, Michaux and Radiguet. Ašūr Fannī (Sétif, 1957) earned a degree in Economics and currently teaches political economy and information economy at ISIC. He has published two collections of poems Zahrat ad-dunya (The Flower of Life, 1994) and Ragiul min ghabār (The Man of Dust, 2003), from which the poems in this issue of IPR have been selected. Viviana Fiorentino is an award-winning poet in Italy; her poems, short stories and translations have appeared in various international literary magazines. In 2019, her poems appeared in the anthology Writing Home (Dedalus Press); in 2021, in the anthology Days of Clear Light (Salmon Poetry). In Italy, she published a poetry collection (Controluna Press), an anthology (Arcipelago Itaca Edizioni) and a novel (Transeuropa). She co-founded two activist poetry initiatives (Sky, You Are Too Big and Letters With Wings. She serves on the editorial board of «Le Ortique», a blog that rediscovers forgotten women artists. She is a recipient of two SIAP grants (2019 and 2020) from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She lives in Belfast where she teaches Italian. Umberto Fiori (Sarzana, 1949) lives in Milan. After an intense period of activity as a musician, Umberto Fiori dedicated himself to poetry, but he is also active as novelist and an essayist (La poesia è un fischio, 2007). His collected poems (Poesie 1986-2014, 2014) have been published as an Oscar Mondadori. In 2019 he published the verse tale Il conoscente. Samuel T. Fleck has more than twelve years’ experience translating Italian and French texts into English. His interest in poetic translation dates to his

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schede 577 time at Columbia University, where he earned his PhD with a dissertation on Fogazzaro and late 19th-century Italian literature. His recent works include the translation of several poems by Fogazzaro and the philosophy book Neuroaesthetics (Neuroestetica) by Chiara Cappelletto, forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Adriano Fraulini (Castelfranco Emilia, 1974) teaches Literature in schools around Modena. He contributed scolarly essays to several literary journals, among which Critica Letteraria and Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate. He obtained second prize in the poetry competition “Dentro che fuori piove”. Grazia Frisina was born in Sicily, though she now lives in Tuscany. She has been a teacher of Italian literature. Her publications include Cenere e cielo (2015), a poetic drama on the Shoah, and Innesti (2016), winner of the Premio Carver 2018. She curated a series of poetic dialogues (Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Beowning) and is jury president of the Premio Borgognoni. Elio Grasso (Genova, 1951) is a poetry critic for several journals. The most recent of his prolific poetic output includes Varco di respiro (2014), Il cibo dei venti (2015), Lo sperpero degli astri (2018), Novecento ai confini with an Introduction of Paolo Valesio (Campanotto editore, 2021). He has also translated T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (2017), Shakespeare’s Sonetti (2012), Emanuele Carnevali’s Ai poeti e altre poesie (2012), poems by Pablo Neruda (1994), and Aforismi e prose by Wallace Stevens (1992). He also translated Ritorno a Gower by Roberto Sanesi (2020). Nicoletta Grillo has a PhD from Humboldt Universität on Paul Valéry.

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

Her poetry publications include Lettere all’amministrazione del condominio (2014) and the plaquette Il tempo lungo (2016). She is interested in the interaction between poetry, music and images. She currently lives in Berlin. Kenneth Gross’s books include The Dream of the Moving Statue, Shakespeare’s Noise, Shylock is Shakespeare and Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life — this last the co-winner of the 2011-12 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. He also edited John Hollander’s unpublished Clark Lectures, The Substance of Shadow: A Darkening Trope in Poetic History (2016). His personal essay Una conversazione a Roma (translated by Donatella Stocchi Perucchio) appeared in IPR XIII-XIV, 2018-2019. Jolanda Guardi teaches Arabic Literature at the University of Turin, Italy. She obtained a PhD in Anthropology (Arabic Literature) from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona (Spain). Her research focuses on the dynamics of intellectuals and power especially as deployed in Arabic literature as well as gender issues. She has been Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in various italian universities, and visiting professor in Algeria. In 2011 she was awarded the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques International Award for Translation from Arabic (Saudi Arabia); in the same year she was conferred the title of Theologian Honoris causa by the CTI (Italian Women Theologian Committee). She is currently Series Editor (novels and poetry translated from Arabic) at Jouvence and Scientific Director of ILA Arabic Certificate Program. Anne Hébert has often been compared to Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Well known and well respected throughout Canada and the French-speak-

578 note cards ing world, Hébert began her career as a poet in the 1940s. However, she is perhaps most famous for her work as a novelist. Her most popular novel Kamouraska (1970) was translated into Italian in 1972 (Dietro il gelo dei vetri) and made into a movie in 1973 by Claude Jutra. Salvatore Jemma (Bologna, 1951) collaborated with the poet Roberto Roversi in several editorial projects. He edited, until 2015, the online magazine «istànti». He currently collaborates with the Bohumil publishing house. His many collections of poems include Scene (1984), Diciotto poesie (1991), Decisioni – Plenilunio di novembre (2004), Decisioni – Paesaggio italiano, (2014) and Decisioni - R. R. 1-30. (2020). He also published the novel Un posto dove abitare (2017). In 2008 a collection of essays entitled Il movimento della poesia was realised. His translation of the poem Audubon. A vision by Robert Penn Warren previously appeared in IPR (2009). Florencia Lobo (Tucumán, 1984) was raised in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, where she resides today. She is an editor for Editora Cultura Tierra del Fuego. In 2018 she received a scholarship from Fondo Nacional de las Artes de Argentina, to publish a book on the culture of the autochthonous Yagán people. She collaborates with editorial projects at El Origen del Viento and the magazine Excéntrica. She is a lover of photography and nature, which she likes to call “the museum of the diverse arts.” She published her first book of poetry El lento deambular de las tormentas in 2018, with the publishing house El Suri Porfiado. Joshua Lollar is an Orthodox priest serving at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Lawrence, Kansas. He holds a PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame and is a lecturer in religion at the University of Kansas.

Giovanni Lovisetto (Florence, 1994) attended the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and the University of Pisa earning a BA in Classics and a MA in Classical Archaeology. After graduating he moved to New York City, where he is currently pursuing research in Greek and Near Eastern archaeology as a PhD student in the Classical Studies program at Columbia University. Scavi Urbani (Transeuropa Edizioni, 2021) is his first poetry collection. Valentina Maini (Bologna, 1987) holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and works as translator into Italian from English and French. She has published short stories in several journals and is also the author of scholarly essays. Her poetry collection Casa rotta appeared in 2016, and her first novel, La mischia, was published in 2020. Silvia Marcantoni Taddei (1994) holds degrees in Lettere Moderne and Informazione ed Editoria e Letterature Moderne. She works in criticism and translation and is also a visual artist and musician. She contributes to La rassegna della letteratura italiana and to Massimo Sannelli’s cultural project Lotta di Classico. Amar Meriech (al-Arbi‘ā’, 1964) holds a degree in Economics from Algiers University. He went on to found, together with other young Algerian poets, the National Association for Creativity. He published a collection of poetry Iktišāf al-‘ādī (The Discovery of Normality), and currently lives in France. The poems published here are taken from the poetry anthology Abū Bakr Az-Zamāl As-sawt al-mufrad. Ši‘riyyāt giazā’iriyya (The Single Voice. Algerian Poems, 2004). Filippo Naitana (Oristano, 1967) earned a PhD at Yale University and is currently Associate Professor of Mod-

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schede 579 ern Languages and Director of the Italian Program at Quinnipiac University. His research has been published in journals such as «Archivio storico italiano», «Dante Studies», «Quaderni medievali», and «Italian Poetry Review». His poetry and literary translations have recently appeared in «The Massachusetts Review», «Journal of Italian Translation», «La Repubblica», «Levania», and «nuoviargomenti.net». Alessandro Niero (1968) is Associate Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Bologna. His main areas of research are 20th-century Russian literature, Russian-Italian literary contacts, translation of Russian prose and poetry. His publications included Una «incognita» di Zamjatin: problemi di traduzione (2001), L’arte del possibile. Iosif Brodskij poeta-traduttore di Quasimodo, Bassani, Govoni, Fortini, De Libero, Saba (2008) and Tradurre poesia russa. Analisi e autoanalisi (2019). His translations of several important Russian poets, including Boris Pasternak, have garnered him several prizes. Francesca Orestano is Professor of English Literature at the University of Milan. She is the author of scholarly works on John Neal and the American Renaissance (Dal Neoclassico al Classico), William Gilpin and the picturesque (Paesaggio e finzione) and visual culture and 19th-century literature (La parola e lo sguardo). She edited Dickens and Italy, New Bearings in Dickens Criticism and History and Narration, as well as three books on children’s literature from the 18th century to the present, and a saucy work on food in English literature, Not Just Porridge: English Literati at Table (2017). In 2021 the book Le giardiniere: semi, radici, propaggini dall’Inghilterra al mondo was published by Milano University Press, and the edited collection Some Keywords in Dick-

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

ens is forthcoming. She is editor of the website Children’s Literature in Italy. Yusuf Ouaghlisi is an Algerian poet. He teaches Arabic literature at the University of Costantina and is the author of several poetry collections and literary essays. Giuseppe Palumbo (Matera, 1964) has been inventing comics since 1986, when he created Ramarro, the first masochistic superhero. From magazines such as «Frigidaire», to the mainstream series, Diabolik, to graphic novels such as “Escobar” produced by Dargaud, to experiments with publishers such as Comma22 and Lavieri, Palumbo, both complete author and pure artist, has shown that you can live without ever going on holiday. Giorgio Papitto (1993) lives in Leipzig (Germany) where he is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Some of his poems have been published in Italian and international literary journals. In 2020, he published his first collection of poems, Una bestia che tace. Martina Piperno is FWO Senior Postdoctoral fellow Fellowship at the KU Leuven (Belgium) in the MDRN Research lab. She earned a PhD in Italian Studies at Warwick University (UK) in 2016 and went on to become a Visiting Fellow at the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London (UK), an Alberto Institute Visiting Fellow at Seton Hall University (NJ, USA), and a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian at University College Cork (Ireland). Her first book, Rebuilding post-revolutionary Italy. Leopardi and Vico’s “New Science” (Oxford, 2018), won the 2019 MLA Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies. Her second book, L’antichità “crudele”. Etruschi e Italici nella letteratura italiana

580 note cards del Novecento, has just come out with Carocci editore. Martina’s research concerns the perception and representation of time in Italian literature and theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Qaddūr Rahmānī was born and lives in Bourdj Bou ‘Arreridj, the main city of his wilāya. He teaches Arabic Literature at M’sila University. The poems translated here are taken from his poetry collection Qira’āt fī ‘aynayk (Readings of your looking, 2002). Domenico Segna teaches Protestant history and the history of modern political thought at the Studio Filosofico Domenicano in Bologna. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Il regno. He had an essay published in the collection Martin Lutero. Discorsi a tavola (2017) and his poetry volumes include Le chiese scomparse (2014). Vijay Seshadri (Bangalore, 1954) he was educated at Oberlin College and Columbia University. He won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry among other distinguished honors and awards. He is the author of the poetry collections: Wild Kingdom, The Long Meadow, The Disappearances, 3 Sections, and That Was Now, This Is Then, as well as many essays, reviews, and memoir fragments. He currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Graziella Sidoli, writer, translator and editor, regularly writes for the online newspaper Il Sussidiario. Her recent work in translation has focused on Latin American poets, introducing Argentinian and Mexican contemporary writers in journals. She was a finalist for the “Bologna in Lettere” award for unpublished poetry in 2020. She was invited by the Academy of American Poets to serve as a judge on the panel of the Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Award. Her translations from the Australian

poet Aidan Coleman appeared in IPR XIII-XIV (2018-2019). She lives in Bologna. Giovanni Strocchi (1976) began writing poetry as a precocious adolescent. Since then he has completed a handful of poetry collections that remain unpublished as of yet. He studied philosophy in school and has worked a variety of idiosyncratic jobs. Anna Maria Tamburini is a scholar of the influence of classical literature, including biblical scripture, on contemporary poets. Her most recent works of scholarship include, Nóstoi: la poesia di Agostino Reali («Il Ponte Vecchio», 2000), Per amore e conoscenza. Cifre bibliche nella poesia di M. Guidacci, C. Campo, A.V. Reali sulla scia di Emily Dickinson (Edizioni Lussografica, 2012), and Margherita Guidacci. La poesia nella vita (Aracne, 2019). A poet in her own right, she has published the collections Colibrì (FaraEditore, 2010) and A mio padre (under the name anna dalle serre, Helicon, 2014). She has taught courses in literature and theology at the ISSR “Alberto Marvelli” di Rimini, an affiliate of the Facoltà Teologica dell’Emilia-Romagna. Paolo Valesio is a poet, essaiyst and narrator. A selection of his poems from Esploratrici solitarie appeared, with a critical commentary by Barbara Carle, in Italica (2020). Pieces from his unpublished collection Il Testimone e l’idiota. Poema per un dialogo appeared in Studi in memoria di Paul A. Colilli (1952-2018) (2020). His Testimonial for Piero Sanavio appeared in IPR XIIIXIV (2018-2019). He took part in the round table “Bellum Perenne: Piero Sanavio ed Ezra Pound” at Cappella Orsini LAB in October 2020. Caterina Verbaro is professor of contemporary Italian literature at the

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schede 581 Lumsa University of Rome. She is a member of the Governing Board of the Italian Society for the Study of Literary Modernity (MOD) and of the Steering Committee of the review «Oblio». Her recent publications include, «Il gorgo interno chiama chiama». Psicoanalisi e letteratura in Amelia Rosselli (2019), «Di Elsa Morante ho molte parole in testa». Percorsi di formazione nell’Isola di Arturo e nell’Amica geniale (2020), as well as an editorial hand in Giusi Verbaro’s Le tracce nel labirinto. Leggere e far leggere la poesia contemporanea (2019) and Lorenzo Calogero’s Avaro nel tuo pensiero (2014). She founded the annual review Crescere in poesia. Cristina Viti’s recent translations include The World Saved By Kids (2016) and Stigmata, by the Albanian poet Gëzim Hajdari (2016). She has also published her own poetry in several journals including «Asymptote» and «The White Review». Cesare Viviani (Siena, 1947) lives in Milan and is a poet and psychoanalyst. He has published numerous poetry publications since his debut in 1973,

Italian Poetry Review, xv, 2020

including most recently: Osare dire (2016) and Ora tocca all’imperfetto (2020). His most cherished awards include the «Premio Viareggio» 1990, the «Premio Pascoli» 2005, and the «Premio P.E.N. Club» 2009. Robert Penn Warren (Kentucky, 1905-Vermount, 1989) was a major poet, narrator and critic. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a founder (1935) with Cleanth Brooks of “The Southern Review” and author of the classic American novel All the King’s Men (1946, Pulitzer Prize 1947), he studied and taught in several prestigious institutions of higher education including Yale University and Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. His Collected Poems came out in 1998 and he appears in The Poets Laureate Anthology (2010). He became the first U.S. Poet Laureate in 1986 and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1987. Simon West is an Australian poet and Italianist. His most recent books are Carol and Ahoy (2018) and Dear Muses? Essay in Poetry (2019). He teaches at The University of Melbourne.

ungarettiana collana di poesia, traduzioni e saggi diretta da Paolo Valesio e Alessandro Polcri

• per informazioni e ordini www.sefeditrice.it

Emma Pretti I giorni chiamati nemici pp. 84, 2010

❧ ordini@sefeditrice.it Vera Lucia de Oliveira La carne quando è sola pp. 72, 2011

Leopoldo María Panero, Ianus Pravo

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pp. 92, 2011 Alberto Bertoni

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Traversate

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Mario Moroni

Antonio Barolini. Cronistoria di un’anima

Recitare le ceneri pp. 96, 2015

a cura di Teodolinda Barolini pp. xxx+342, 2015

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pp. 144, 2016

Mauritania

Attrevarsare le parole. La poesia nella Svizzera italiana

Michele Marullo Tarcaniota

a cura di Tania Collani e Martina Della Casa

a cura di Pietro Rapezzi

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Poesie d’amore

pp. 148, 2017 Mallarmé. Versi e prose. Traduzione italiana di F.T. Marinetti a cura di Giuseppe Gazzola pp. 164, 2018

Angelo Scipioni

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De Renuntiatione. Scritture di mari(lyn)ologia

Umanesimo latino e volgare. Studi su Fonzio, Poliziano, Pico e Machiavelli

pp. 208, 2019

Prospettive incrociate. La poesia nella svizzera italiana: dialoghi e letture a cura di Martina Della Casa e Clémence Bauer pp. 200, 2019

pp. 308, 2019

Patrizia Santi Caro marzo pp. 96, 2020

Writers Between Worlds / Scrittori fra più mondi a cura di Flavia Manservigi, Paolo Valesio, Marcello Neri

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