Pictures at an Exhibition @Europunk in Rome

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Sylvia Plath & Amelia Rosselli

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February 11th is a date I cannot forget, being the death anniversary of two women poets I truly love. Sylvia Plath 's death makes of her an iconic martyr immolating herself on the altar of Pain. Reading about her death and her last few acts before sealing the kitchen's door inspired one my poems, " Milk and Bread ," that was first published by editor Cooper Renner in elimae and that can be read in my They Talk About Death chapbook. I am certainly not the only poet who was inspired by Sylvia's death. Thomas Rain Crowe wrote a beautiful poem--"Poem for Sylvia Plath Without Even Lighting the Stove"-- on the subject that you may read here and so did Tania Pryputniewicz in her " Sylvia III ," from her November Butterfly collection. Amelia Rosselli was one of Italy's best women poets. I have always admired her craft in writing her lines in either Italian, English or French. Her mother was English and her father, Carlo Rosselli, was a famous...
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Recalling Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Force of the Past

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Today is Pasolini's 36th death anniversary. He was brutally killed on the night of November 2, 1975 in still unclear circumstances and found the following morning by a blue collar on his way to work. Pasolini is possibly Italy's most important poet after Dante. An amazing intellectual who truly loved the lowest classes, which he celebrated in his deeply profound novels and poems. As Jack Hirschman points out, his three initials stand for "Passion, Provocation and Prophecy." This is so true.  I wish to celebrate Pasolini posting Orson Welles' reading one of his poems of which I am also including a translation. "I am a Force of the Past" roars Pasolini. No, he is much more than that. He is still today a Force of the Present and of the Future too.  I am a Force of the Past. My love lies only in tradition. I come from the ruins, the churches, the altarpieces, the villages abandoned in the Appenines or foothills of the Alps where my brothers once l...
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Rilke's Angel

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I am in Rilke state of mind today. As a translator and writing poems mainly in English myself, I am always fascinated by Rilke's skilful use of language in his French poems--considering the fact that he was Bohemian-Austrian--but even more by his powerful depictions. The one I love most is perhaps his Angel in the poem "An Angel At My Table". A visionary yet rustic presence whose invisible traits linger in me after each single reading. The physical description is missing, but one has the impression of truly seeing the winged creature. Enjoy Rilke's wonderful piece of bravura (not lost in translation)! Stay still, if suddenly the Angel decides to appear at your table; smooth out the creases in the tablecloth under your bread. Offer him to take a turn at tasting your crude fare, to take a turn lifting to his pure lips a simple glass of everyday life.
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