In the black star of my destiny…
I have something that isn’t this
versifying for good ladies or knaves
In the black star of my destiny
I have something that isn’t this
versifying for good ladies or knaves
or deluded spent silent stars
or the hoarse vanity of being among the first
pointed out.
Atop the ship’s swaying arbor
that adapted well to each wind
and returned ever quietly,
you repent.
But now you’ve magnificently chosen
your luck: drawing from the draw
an imaginary kiss, all
a trail of distinctions, vague
and elephantine.
Straight into the muddy void
never raise your voice, truly: when
pausing near your passion
you burned it.
Amelia Rosselli was an Italian poet. Influenced by writers such as Giuseppe Ungaretti, Cesare Pavese, Sandro Penna, and Eugenio Montale, Rosselli, by the late 1950s, was already writing some the work included in her two major early books, Variazioni belliche (1964, War Variations, 2003) and Serie ospedaliera, which were championed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and others. Her extraordinary, highly experimental literary output includes verse and prose in English and French as well as Italian.
Diana Thow began translating Italian poetry while studying in Rome her junior year abroad, and moved to Iowa to pursue an MFA in literary translation in 2006 as an Iowa Arts Fellow, finishing her MFA with a thesis on the poet Amelia Rosselli. She has published translations in eXchanges, Carte Italiane, Mare Nostrum, 91st Meridian, and elsewhere. She is currently a PhD student at University of California Berkeley.
