Prigione
Vivere
Amare
Conoscere
Avere
una sola cosa
è prigione.
Vivere una sola vita,
in una sola città,
in un solo paese,
in un solo universo,
vivere in un solo mondo
è prigione.
Amare un solo amico,
un solo padre,
una sola madre,
una sola famiglia,
amare una sola persona
è prigione.
Conoscere una sola lingua,
un solo lavoro,
un solo costume,
una sola civiltà,
conoscere una sola logica
è prigione.
Avere un solo corpo,
un solo pensiero,
una sola conoscenza,
una sola essenza,
avere un solo essere
è prigione.
Translator’s Glossary
|
WORD
|
DEFINITION
|
POSSIBLE SYNONYMS
|
|---|---|---|
| amare (v.) | to have a strong feeling of affection | to love, to adore, to care for |
| amico (n.) | a person you share a close relationship with | friend, buddy, companion |
| avere (v.) | to possess or contain | to have, to own |
| città (n.) | a place where people live and work | city, town, hometown |
| civiltà (n.) | the way of life of a country or group of people | civilization, society, culture |
| conoscere (v.) | to be familiar with a person or thing | to know, to understand |
| conoscenza (n.) | familiarity with a person or thing | knowledge, understanding |
| corpo (n.) | the physical form of a living thing | body |
| cosa (n.) | an unnamed object | thing |
| costume (n.) | the habits of an individual or community | custom, tradition, ritual |
| è (v.) | from the verb essere meaning to be | is, exists |
| essere (n.) | the experience of being alive | life, reality, existence |
| essenza (n.) | the core quality of something | essence, spirit, soul |
| famiglia (n.) | a group of people connected by blood, marriage, or adoption | family, ancestry |
| in (prep.) | enclosed or surrounded by something else | in, within |
| lavoro (n.) | an activity done to earn a living | job, task, profession |
| lingua (n.) | a system of spoken or written communication | language, tongue, vocabulary |
| logica (n.) | a set of principles | belief system, set of standards |
| madre (n.) | a female parent | mother, mom |
| mondo (n.) | a planet | world, earth |
| padre (n.) | a male parent | father, dad |
| paese (n.) | the territory of a nation | land, country, homeland |
| pensiero (n.) | what the mind produces | thought, idea, philosophy |
| persona (n.) | a human being | person, individual |
| prigione (n.) | a place of captivity and confinement | prison, jail |
| solo / sola (adj.) | just one | lone, single, only |
| vita (n.) | the condition of being alive | life, existence, being |
| vivere (v.) | to be alive | to live, to be |
| un / una (adj.) | used when referring to something for the first time | one, a |
| universo (n.) | everything in creation | universe, cosmos, natural world |
Artistic Elements
I. About Free Verse
• Free verse is a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from
limitations of regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Such
poems are without rhythms and rhyme schemes; do not follow regular rhyme
scheme rules and still provide artistic expression. In this way, the poet can give his
own shape to a poem how he/she desires. However, it still allows poets to use
alliteration, rhyme, cadences or rhythms to get the effects that they consider are
suitable for the piece.
Bio
Ndjock Ngana immigrated to Italy in 1973 from Cameroon. He is a bilingual poet who writes in Italian and Basaa. Ngana has said that the word mok (prigione in Italian) did not exist in Basaa before Westerners came to Cameroon. The word mok comes from a Bassa word that means “curse.”