C’è come un dolore nella stanza/There is a kind of pain in the room by Amelia Rosselli

6 June 201524 November 2018

C’è come un dolore nella stanza

da “Documento” (1966-1973)

di Amelia Rosselli

C’è come un dolore nella stanza, ed
è superato in parte: ma vince il peso
degli oggetti, il loro significare
peso e perdita.

C’è come un rosso nell’albero, ma è
l’arancione della base della lampada
comprata in luoghi che non voglio ricordare
perché anch’essi pesano.

Come nulla posso sapere della tua fame
precise nel volere
sono le stilizzate fontane
può ben situarsi un rovescio d’un destino
di uomini separati per obliquo rumore.

There is a kind of pain in the room

from “Documento” (1966-1973)

by Amelia Rosselli

There is a kind of pain in the room, and
it is tamed in part: but what lives on
is the weight of the objects, their sense
of weight and loss.

There is a kind of red in the tree, but it is
the orange hue of the base of the lamp
bought in places I prefer not to remember
because they too are heavy.

The kind of nothing I know about your hunger
precise in the longing
are the etched fountains
there may well be the overturn of a destiny
of men divided for oblique noise.

Born in Paris in 1930, Amelia Rosselli moved to England in 1940, then to America, and finally to Italy in 1948. She spent her life studying composition, music, and ethnomusicology, and took part in the cultural life of postwar Italy as a poet and literary translator. Her extraordinary literary output includes verse and prose in English and French as well as Italian.

On translation she wrote: “I believe that writing and translation overlap a bit. I’m usually good at it if I choose the poet myself, if there is feeling. I like to translate; it’s good practice. I use the dictionary a lot: I’m a perfectionist and a bit absent-minded…. We often read the work of an author superficially. Through translation we uncover the secret mechanisms of the work.”(complete interview in Italian at http://www.nazioneindiana.com/2007/12/02/la-furia-dei-venti-contrari-2/)

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