Welcome!

A chapbook of my "Italiana" in translation, poems featured in English and Italian, titled Bocca, Voce, Delirio/Mouth, Voice, Delirium, is forthcoming this fall as a "virtual book" on this platform.

This collection which includes poems in both English and beautifully rendered translations, showcases poems I've written over the years about a remarkable adventure I had in the summer of 1973--so very long ago, when looking back from 2017.

If you love Italy and all things Italian, you will love my book. Do also visit the memoir Nightfall in Verona on its own blog; there I take you on my journey in prose, from our purchase of a VW bus in Frankfurt, to the toe of the boot of Italy and my first assignation with my new amore--a wonderful young Calabrese (Calabrian man).

Ah, Love, Life, so beautiful and tragic at the same time-- this little book of lyric poetry brings it all to you. See ordering info and thanks for stopping by! JA

NEL ITALIANO:

Un chapbook del mio "Italiana" nella traduzione, poesie in inglese e italiano, intitolato Bocca, Voce, Delirio è imminente questa otono.--

Questa collezione che comprende poesie in inglese e splendidamente resi traduzioni, poesie di vetrine che ho scritto nel corso degli anni una straordinaria avventura che ho avuto nell'estate del 1973..--molto tempo fa, quando guardando indietro dal 2017.

Se amate Italia e tutte le cose italiane, vi piacerà il mio libro. Visitare anche il libro di memorie Nightfall a Verona sul proprio blog; ci prendo voi il mio viaggio in prosa, dal nostro acquisto di un bus VW a Francoforte, alla punta dello stivale d'Italia e il mio primo appuntamento con il mio nuovo amore..--un meraviglioso giovane Calabrese (uomo calabrese).

Friday, April 7, 2017

Book Launches Soon: Order Now!


Dear Friends -- Very soon I will be posting the entire manuscript of my collection of "Italiana"-- Poems of Italy and Amore here on my Blogger site.  My "consiglieri" for this project include by nomes d'plume 'Enzo Castel di Lama and R. Alba di Sora, two erudite acquaintances to whom I am very grateful for wrestling with my poems.  However, it is difficult enough to entrust one's work to translators without the kind of immaturity shown to me by the referenced persons who objected to my effort to restore some of the meaning of certain lines.  Now that I have determined to post the work with translations they did willingly for me for the sake of this project, I will simply employ the practice of using noms de plume to accommodate them.  I absolutely will not have my First Amendment rights to publish this work contaminated by their vitriol, or that of the original press who accepted this work.

That press is in chaos and has been described to me to be a "puppy mill"  by someone who is aware of the fact that an entire family lives on the backs of novice poets desperate to believe they have published an honest to god collection.  I am not sorry that I withdrew this manuscript from the vanity press Finishing Line. Now that all of the toxic b.s. is out of the way, I hope you find the collection a rich and fascinating read.   j


*Calabrian Garlic

In her window, a basket of garlic reaching for the sun.
She broke off one of its fat cloves and took the knife

to it, using the blade’s flat to mash the nub open;
then she peeled off the papery rind and there it was,

sending its quartered objections into the air,
disempowered and redolent.

I sat back in the shadows with my love, her son Pepe;
we sipped Latte di Mandorla and watched Mama

in her cooking dance: how she carefully took a knuckle
from butcher paper, sliding it into a boiling pot,  

mincing fresh basil, crushing pomodori for the sauce. 
We kissed, and longing surged in us and his tongue

was as tensile and searching as the garlic’s green
and inquiring foot, and I dared not touch the tendrils

of his desire then. But later, spent and laughing after dinner,
I kissed again his garlicky mouth, and much later, 

we wept briny tears of rapture, rising to walk the edge of paradise, 
in the lolling phosphor on the Strait of Messina.

I saw something arcing through the spume and he said
it was the pesce spada, the sword-fish in rising-moon ardor. 

I said within myself, with my poet’s heart, thinking
of Homer’s stunned walk in this very place,

That is Scylla herself, exulting in the tide that forces
garlic-stricken lovers into each other’s arms at all hours.

Soon I boarded a train north, away from Mama, Papa
and the babies lolling in everyone’s arms at dusk

in the kitchen; many years later, there is no trace
of them now, not even anything legible in a book

of names, as if I had conjured all of it from thin air,
my indoctrination into a hard, polished love

tinted by a flash in the pan anger, like the pink
water-laved stones one finds in the surf,

la famiglia’s work-weary and serene faces
as we walked the garden.

This is what I remember now: all of them cloistered 
in simplicity and resolve, like the purposeful garlic

in the window basket—sublimely impermanent,
sheathed in undaunted light.

                                         ......

To translate poetry from one language to another is a daunting and exhausting task.  Inevitably it is difficult to come to concensus, especially if one's translation team includes those who do not know the original language and are not poets themselves.  This is the case with the collaborative translations in my collection.  The team: a bilingual professor who is a native of Italy.  An Italian "poetessa" who does not know English, and whose zeal often meant straying from the text to choices that pleased her sensibility and her "ear." 

And finally, me, semi-bilingual Americana, relying now and then on translation software and my innate language sense, my ear and heart for the Italian language.  I am grateful to the other members of the team.  Our product is beautiful and imperfect--as it should be and as are we.  


Aglio Calabrese

Alla sua finestra, un cestino di agli 
raggiungere al sole.
Preso’ uno spicchio e gli avvicinò il coltello   
usando la lama piatta per schiacciarlo:

poi tolse la camicia ed ecco era lì, spezzato,   
inviando le sue obiezioni divisi 
nell’ aria inerme e profumato.

Mi sono seduto nelle ombre 
con il mio amore suo figlio Pepe; 
abbiamo sorseggiato Latte di Mandorla, 
guardando Mama esibirsi nella 
sua danza culinaria; con cura preso’ 

lo zampetto avvolto dal macellaio,  
scivolandolo nell’acqua bollente,
tagliando basilico fresco, 
schiacciando i pomodori per la salsa. 

Ci siamo baciati e il desiderio e’ divennato 
intenso,  la sua lingua era tesa e alla ricerca 
come il piede dell aglio, verde e indagante. 

Poi non ho osato toccare i spicchi del suo fame.  
Ma più tardi, dopo cena,  rilassati e ridendo,
baciai di nuovo la sua bocca di aglio e più tardi ancora, 
abbiamo pianto lacrime salmastre d’estasi, elevandoci 

per fare passeggiata sulla soglia del paradiso,  
il fosforo Calabrese che porta pigrizia sullo 
Stretto di Messina.

Ho visto attraverso l’aria qualcosa di arcuato, 
mi disse che era il pesce spada, che si alza 
con la forza di l’ardore lunare.

Mi sono detta con il mio cuore di poeta, pensando 
allo sbalorditivo cammino di Omero proprio qui,

Quella è Scilla stessa, esultante nella marea che forza
amanti stregati dall’aglio ad abbracciarsi a tutte le ore.

Presto salii sul treno verso nord, lontano da Mamma 
e Papà e dai bambini che al tramonto si cullavano
tra le braccia di tutti nella cucina. 

Molti anni dopo, non c’è più traccia di loro,
nemmeno qualcosa da leggere in un libro di nomi—
 come se li avessi evocati tutti dall’aria, ed come mi
e stato indottrinato con un duro e splendente amore

tinto dalla rabbia dura, come le pietre rosa che si trovano 
nella spuma del mare-- le facce serene della famiglia 
segnate dalla fatica mentre camminavo nel giardino.

Questo e’ quello che mi ricordo ora: tutti loro
clausura nella semplicita’ e determinazione,
come l’utile aglio nel cestino alla finestra—
sublimamente impermanente, 
coperto da una luce imperterrita.


Traduzione: Author and Friends 


copyright Jenne' Rodey Andrews   2017

Calabrian Garlic first appeared in the beautiful publication Vox Populi, editor and publisher Michael Simms.