Language: Italian
Poet: Mariangela Gualtieri
Translator: Olivia Sears
Region: Italy
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I believe you’d call it fear
Four poems by Mariangela Gualtieri, translated from Italian by Olivia Sears
Mariangela Gualtieri was born in Cesena, Italy, in 1951. Trained as an architect, in 1983 she founded, together with Cesare Ronconi, the famed Teatro Valdoca, for which she serves as dramaturge. Long committed to cultivating the oral dimension of poetry and its communal, collective roots, she routinely—via her Valdoca projects—bridges the realms of poetry and theater. Her books of poetry include: Antenata (Crocetti, 1992); Senza polvere senza peso (Einaudi, 2006); Paesaggio con fratello rotto (Luca Sossella Editore, 2007); Bestia di gioia (Einaudi, 2010); Sermone ai cuccioli della mia specie (book and CD, Teatro Valdoca, 2012); and Le giovani parole (Einaudi, 2015). Her latest volume, Quando non morivo (2019), went into its third printing in its first month of sales.
Translator Olivia E. Sears is founder of the Center for the Art of Translation and serves on the editorial board of Two Lines Press. Her most recent translation is Ardengo Soffici’s groundbreaking 1919 volume of experimental poetry, BÏF§ZF+18: Simultaneities and Lyric Chemisms (World Poetry Books, 2022).
*
Bastava quella manciata di parole
e una pressura afferrava le interiora.
Credo si potesse chiamare paura.
Si installava un po’ sotto
al petto, una stretta
insistente, una torchiatura, un nodo
al centro del respiro.
Credo fosse paura.
Allora aprí un’indagine mesta
fra quelle frange che addobbavano
il povero costato, le interiora.
E s’avvide
che ancora non s’era liberata
della bestia paura e si ripeteva
scalpicciando sullo scalino basso
orchestrando soliti rimedi
di antichi maestri parlanti
da pagine stampate.
Ah! Ci fosse una madre
santa. Un rimedio. Pensava. Un’uscita
dalla ripetizione lezione amara
ci fosse, vi prego, un passo
in questo stallo di lunga durata
e l’agognata impavidità dei savi
e la leggerezza delle rondini
che non fanno primavera ma un piú
largo cielo.
*
That handful of words was enough
for a pressure to seize her gut.
I believe you’d call it fear.
It settled a little below
her chest, an insistent
tightness, crushing, a knot
at the center of breath.
I believe it was fear.
So she launched an unhappy
investigation among those fringes
that adorned her sorry ribcage, her gut.
And she realized
she wasn’t yet free of the beast fear
and was repeatedly
shuffling on the bottom step
orchestrating the usual remedies
of ancient masters speaking
from printed pages.
Ah! If there were a holy
mother. A remedy. She thought. A way out
of the repetition bitter lesson
if there were only, I beg you, a step
forward in this lasting impasse
and the yearned-for courage of the wise
and the lightness of swallows
that don’t make spring but a much
wider sky.
*
Otto notti dentro l’aurora. Arrocco della speranza.
Resta – In questa pace ancora – Nella quiete modesta
di chi fa il suo lavoro – piano – per bene –
Cresci animale del cuore. Stai
attenta. L’imperatore cuce
il tuo vestito di punti d’oro di luce.
Non essere mesta
mai per te.
*
Eight nights within the dawn. Bastion of hope.
Stay—Remain in this peace—In the modest quiet
of one who does their work—quietly—properly—
Grow, animal of the heart. Be
careful. The emperor sews
your clothes with golden stitches of light.
Don’t ever be sad
for yourself.
*
Questo giorno che ho perso
e che non ha fruttato
se non una mestizia, il puntiglio
del suo modesto mucchio
di faccende.
Questo giorno che ho perso
ed ero nell’esilio
dentro panni che non erano miei
e scarpe che mi disagiavano
e tasche che non riconoscevo
e correvo correvo puntuale
senza neanche un dono
per nessuno. Solo un vuoto, corto
respirare. A conferma che nel disamore
il fare anche se fai resta non fatto.
*
This day that I’ve lost
that has borne no fruit
but gloom, the stubbornness
of its modest pile
of chores.
This day that I’ve lost
and I was in exile
in clothes not my own
and shoes that fit poorly
and pockets I didn’t know
and I was running right on time
running with no gifts
for anyone. Only short hollow
breaths. Proof that doing without love
whatever you do remains undone.
*
Stavano tutte stese le mie ore
erano poche. Le guardavo
dal lato che non muore
sentivo peso e colore — festa e
patimento. Costato trapassato e
magnifico salto mortale
decapitato ogni bisogno e sogno
un addio dolce dentro tutte le cose.
*
My hours were all laid out
they were few. I viewed them
from the side that doesn’t die
I felt weight and color—celebration and
suffering. Stabbing ribs and
magnificent backflips
every need and dream beheaded
a sweet farewell within all things
