Poetry Club – Italian Poetry in Translation
I’ve often written here about the Patrizia Cavalli book my poems won’t change the world. So I won’t quote again from it today.
I had a note from a fb friend sharing her poetry, Federica Galetto, whose book is Ode from a Nightingale, translated by Chiara De Luca. And I have another unmet friend, Sara Bini who is a poet and musician who shares her work on Instagram, often, and on a blog which she translates into English. And I’ve been thinking how wonderful it is to know those who write poetry in Italian. And then, the gift that is translation, that labour of love.
While I studied Italian in uni three thousand years ago, I have forgotten almost all of it. I’ve been doing DuoLingo Italian off and on for a few years and it’s something…but one only has so much time and energy.
Interestingly, Federica Galetto wrote her book in English, though her first language is Italian. I admire that so much! The Italian is a translation from Chiara De Luca. De Luca says of the poems, “When you become alone you perfectly fit in your eyes, you are in the body of all animals, waiting to welcome any fragile light and ever-changing smell, any secret voice and iridescent colour.” Take a look:
Have you ever
Have you ever heard of my granitic soul?
A crooning crown on top, a steel–plated
lace around the neck.
Have you ever seen my watered eyes?
Two pure gems in the middle, a flooding
joy hold in a flock of seagulls flying
to the heart of this earth.
Running against a desperate quintessence,
there I find a floe, a limpid lineage
I descend from as a queen without a king.
And still drops run away, the sky dissolved
in a gloomy cloud where I sit and wait for the
day again, beautiful screen of devotion
in a mist.
Hai mai
Hai mai sentito della mia anima di granito?
Una corona che canticchia in cima, una collana
corazzata al collo.
Hai mai visto i miei occhi d’acqua?
Due pure gemme al centro, una gioia
esondante in uno stormo di gabbiani
in volo verso il cuore della terra.
In corsa contro la quintessenza affranta,
vi trovo un banco di ghiaccio, un limpido lignaggio
da cui discendo come una regina senza re.
E ancora gocce scorrono via, il cielo si è dissolto
in una nube cupa dove siedo in attesa che ritorni
il giorno, schermo splendido di devozione
in una nebbia.
Translation of poetry cannot be done by machines, that much is true. Check out this translation by John Duval of a short poem by Trilussa:
Happiness
I saw a bee settle
on a rose petal.
It sipped, and off it flew.
All in all, happiness, too,
is something little.
And then compare it to another translation on this site where the word sipped is “sucks” and see how that changes the meaning, the feeling.
The Italian:
Felicità
C’e un Ape che se posa
su’un bottone de rosa:
Io succhia e se ne va…
Tutto sommato, la felicità
è una piccola cosa.
I don’t think I have to make a case for the importance of reading poetry in translation with my readers. You already know how much you can learn about the world by doing so. A site you might enjoy is Poetry International. You might also like to check out a very cool magazine The Polyglot. (They’re also on Instagram).
Your poetry club challenge this week is to read a poem in translation, any poem, and compare it to its original. Better yet, read it outdoors! It’s fall where I live, and there’s nothing better than sitting outside with a book of poetry in the golden light…
For example, you might start with this poem translated by a friend of mine. “Only Yesterday” by Liliana Ursu is translated from the Romanian by Adriana Onițǎ here.
But okay, I lied, I’d like to end with a poem by Patrizia Cavalli. I’d like to encourage you to read a poem and then sit there and be wonderfully bored. Like this.
“The more bored you are, the more attached you get.
I’m so bored, I no longer want to die.”
(translated by Gini Alhadeff)
“Più ci si annoia e più ci si affeziona.
M’annoio tanto, non voglio più morire.”
