Anthology-Preface: Valentini Santa
Translation: Michela Corvino, Evropi Rizou,Valentini Santa, Konstantina Christopoulou
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Vincenzo Galvagno, Valerio Grutt, Diego Conticello, Antonio Lanza, Maddalena Bergamin, Maria Borio, Antonio Bux, Davide Nota, Marco Pelliccioli, Omar Ghiani Saba, Ambra Simeone, Michela Zanarella
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When I was invited – or should I say challenged? – to translate young Italian poets, I must say that I first envisioned a poetry collection similar to those of classic Italian poets who have shaped entire generations and mindsets and laid the foundations for modern Italian literary tradition, namely D’Annunzio, Montale, Quasimodo and Pavese, the literary offspring and successors of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Batista and Foscolo.
However, in our mission to translate young Italian poets, we came face to face with a reality that was altogether different, far and beyond the principles of Italian poetry and at the other end of the norms that dictate the order of words and rhymes, a reality that dismisses attachment to meters and classical symbolisms.
Young Italian poets are people who move and breathe in our world, who live their daily lives like any of us. They experience life, death, love and rejection, read newspapers and listen to their neighbors screaming next door. They ride buses and trains and immerse themselves into the sounds and smells of modern society. Young Italian poets have broken free of the hatching room to inhale the dirty oxygen of the city, dirty their hands in the open country and seek emotion and immaterial qualities to the spots where these qualities merge with brutal reality. Young Italian poets live in a world where the highest points and the lowest points in people’s minds intersect, and all this they put on paper.
Pens may no longer exist at their desks, yet words take form just as eloquently through the keyboard and come into being through the printer’s toner cartridges. The end result is… pretty much the same. Their voices reach out to us, decrying our everyday circumstances, demanding that we react against everything that destroys our innermost selves; but other times, they simply take us on a trip through their inner worlds, searching for others who are willing to listen to and understand them.
Translating words and emotions was far from an easy task; there were many times when the responsibility was too much to bear. However, the same poets who placed this heavy burden on our shoulders stood at our side and assisted us with compiling this Anthology. On many occasions, in their eagerness to answer our questions, they tried to “translate” their own poetry for us, sometimes with words, other times with images. We thank them both for the journey and for choosing to travel with us all the way. At their side, at my side, stood three wonderful young women, Michela, Evropi and Konstantina, three wonderful translators who literally adopted these poems as if they were children placed under their protection, and were never disrespectful towards their creators, their original language and inner attributes. Lastly, I must thank Evangelia for participating in the translation process.
On the one hand, you have twelve young Italian poets: Maddalena Bergamin, Maria Borio, Antonio Bux, Diego Conticello, Vincenzo Galvagno, Omar S. Ghiani, Valerio Grutt, Antonio Lanza, Davide Nota, Marco Peliccioli, Ambra Simeone and Michela Zanarella. On the other hand, you have five translators: Michela Corvino, Evropi Rizou, Valentini Santa, Konstantina Christopoulou and Evangelia Filippatou. All of them joined forces to bring you an Anthology full of love, emotion, impetus and inspiration. We hope that it will give readers the same emotions so lavishly given to us.
Valentini Santa