Mani Rao (India)
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As soon as you start to read my poem I start to feel fond about you 0000000000Do you believe in love 0000000000the small l 0000000000those little fires 0000000000much huddling 0000000000two tossed aquariums in the ocean 0000000000Love|lies 000000000000000000000000All|lies Outside The Aviary Two Freewheeling Snowplumes Interlocked Coi ! Ploded Verges Flurry In The Cages The Sky Separated In To Two The Nets High00000 Humane Across The Room. Hair Moon Clouds. Smile Said Between You And I. Sudden Gun And 0000Shot. Eyes Jumped Water. Why The Sidelong Glance. A Line Between Mountain And 0000Ground. The Range Watched. Grew. Not The Size The Lightness. Not The Lightness 0000The Shapeliness. Not The Shapeliness The Sharpness. Not Of A Rumble. Of A Sesame Seed. 0000Itch Around Which Forms Grain. Need Wind Not Water. Light Sway. Upward 0000Stroke. Eye Open Dumbell. Two Rings. Mortal § Immortal. Soft Flame. Fingernail Size. |
Mani Rao (b.1965 India) is a poet, translator and independent scholar.She has nine poetry books including New & Selected Poems (Poetrywala 2015), Echolocation (Math Paper Press 2014) and Ghostmasters (Chameleon Press 2010). Two books in translation from Sanskrit include Bhagavad Gita (Autumn Hill Books 2010; Fingerprint 2015) and Kalidasa for the 21st Century Reader (Aleph 2015).Her poems and essays are published or forthcoming in journals including Poetry Magazine, Wasafiri, Meanjin, Washington Square, Fulcrum, West Coast Line, Interim and Colorado Review, and in anthologies including The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, Zoland Poetry, W.W.Norton’s Language for a New Century, Penguin’s Sixty Indian Poets, and the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets.She has performed at literary festivals including The Age Melbourne Writers’ Festival, Chicago Humanities Festival, New York PEN World Voices, and The Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival. Translations of her poems have been published in Latin, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, French and German. She has held residencies at the Iowa International Writing Program (2005 and 2009), the University of Iowa International Programs (2006), and Omi Ledig House (2018). Mani has an MFA in Creative Writing from UNLV (2010), and a PhD in Religious Studies from Duke University (2016). Her latest book is non-fiction– Living Mantra: Mantra, Deity and Visionary Experience Today in the Contemporary Anthropology of Religion series from Palgrave Macmillan (2019).
April, 2019 |
March, Alfonso Gatto (Italy)
Alfonso Gatto (17 July 1909 – 6 March 1976) was an Italian author. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century and a major exponent of hermetic poetry.Gatto had a difficult childhood, studied at the Salerno classic lycaeum where he discovered his passion for poetry and literature. In 1926 he attended the University of Naples Federico II, but he had to discontinue his studies due to financial problems. Like many Italian poets of his age, such as Eugenio Montale and Salvatore Quasimodo, he never graduated.Gatto fell in love with the daughter of his maths teacher, Jole, and being only 21 he eloped with her to Milan. From that moment his life became quite restless and adventurous, with many changes of residence and employment: he was first a bookshop assistant, a college instructor, a proofreader, a journalist, a teacher. In 1936, because of his open anti-fascist activism, he was arrested and jailed at the San Vittore prison in Milan.During those years, Gatto had been a contributor to various innovative journals and magazines of the Italian literary culture.In 1938 he founded the magazine Campo di Marte together with writer Vasco Pratolini and commissioned by Italian publisher Vallecchi, but it only lasted a year. It was however a significant experience for Gatto, who was able to enter the leading literary circles."Campo di Marte" had been created as a fortnightly magazine (first issued on 1 August 1938) and with the specific remit of educating the public in the artistic and literary production of all genres. The magazine was directly connected with the so-called Florentine Hermeticism.In 1941 Gatto was appointed professor of Italian literature for "high merits", at the Art School of Bologna, and a special correspondent for the newspaper L'Unità, thus being placed in a primary position for the promotion of literature of communist inspiration. Subsequently, Gatto abandoned the Italian Communist Party and became a dissident communist. The poet died in a car accident on 8 March 1976 at Capalbio in the province of Grosseto. He is buried in the cemetery of Salerno and on his tomb (which has a boulder as its tombstone) is engraved his friend Montale's funeral farewell.
From La storia delle vittime / History of the Victims (1962-1965)
Iddio non guarda, cammina,
e le mani sull'opera compiuta
sono mani di vittima che vede
la messe delle polveri frustate
correre luminosa dai suoi cenni.
Dalla folla degli uomini
quanti l'erba del vento, quanti gli occhi,
verrà l'urlo del numero raggiante.
God doesn't watch, he moves,
and his hands on the completed work
are the hands of a victim who sees
the harvest of the swirling dust
flow luminously by his orders.
From the crowds of men
so much grass in the wind, so many eyes,
will come the howl of the radiant multitude.
From Desinenze / Endings (1974-1976)
Lazzaro
Dove fuggi, Lazzaro indenne
ove pedali tra pietre e ossa
per l'arida terra che ti tratenne?
Hai paura di parlare, paura che possa
parlare il tuo spirito oscuro.
Con la morte eri giunto al tuo riposo,
non poteva destarti.
Ora tu parli al muro
insensato, parli all'ulivo annoso
e qual eri no osi pensarti
e chi per essere sarai.
Ora attendi l'incredulo che tocchi
e che ti dica vero
credendo alle sue mani.
Incredibile Lazzaro creduto
per quel che sei domani,
un ciclista sul via.
Gesù ti chiese in conto d'agonia
notizie della morte che tu sai.
Lazarus
Where are you running to, Lazarus, unscathed
where tree trunks amid rocks and bones
detained you through the parched land?
You're afraid of talking, afraid that your dark
spirit may speak.
In death you met your rest,
you could not awaken yourself.
Now you talk to the deaf wall,
you talk to the aged olive tree
and what you were you dare not think
nor who you will become by being.
Now you heed the disbelief that touches you
and tells you the truth
believing its own hands.
Incredible Lazarus, believed in
for what you will be tomorrow,
a bicyclist on the road.
Out of agony Jesus asked you
for the news you have about death.
From La storia delle vittime / History of the Victims (1962-1965)
Iddio non guarda, cammina,
e le mani sull'opera compiuta
sono mani di vittima che vede
la messe delle polveri frustate
correre luminosa dai suoi cenni.
Dalla folla degli uomini
quanti l'erba del vento, quanti gli occhi,
verrà l'urlo del numero raggiante.
God doesn't watch, he moves,
and his hands on the completed work
are the hands of a victim who sees
the harvest of the swirling dust
flow luminously by his orders.
From the crowds of men
so much grass in the wind, so many eyes,
will come the howl of the radiant multitude.
From Desinenze / Endings (1974-1976)
Lazzaro
Dove fuggi, Lazzaro indenne
ove pedali tra pietre e ossa
per l'arida terra che ti tratenne?
Hai paura di parlare, paura che possa
parlare il tuo spirito oscuro.
Con la morte eri giunto al tuo riposo,
non poteva destarti.
Ora tu parli al muro
insensato, parli all'ulivo annoso
e qual eri no osi pensarti
e chi per essere sarai.
Ora attendi l'incredulo che tocchi
e che ti dica vero
credendo alle sue mani.
Incredibile Lazzaro creduto
per quel che sei domani,
un ciclista sul via.
Gesù ti chiese in conto d'agonia
notizie della morte che tu sai.
Lazarus
Where are you running to, Lazarus, unscathed
where tree trunks amid rocks and bones
detained you through the parched land?
You're afraid of talking, afraid that your dark
spirit may speak.
In death you met your rest,
you could not awaken yourself.
Now you talk to the deaf wall,
you talk to the aged olive tree
and what you were you dare not think
nor who you will become by being.
Now you heed the disbelief that touches you
and tells you the truth
believing its own hands.
Incredible Lazarus, believed in
for what you will be tomorrow,
a bicyclist on the road.
Out of agony Jesus asked you
for the news you have about death.