Against the Light

By Tiziano Broggiato

This collection presents a bilingual Italian-English selection of the poetry of Tiziano Broggiato, winner of the prestigious Premio Montale. The translations, by Canadians Patricia Hanley and Maria Laura Mosco, bring to North American audiences the poetry of an author who has already been translated into half a dozen languages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guernica
• Release date: Apr 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781550716641

Book preview

Against the Light

An Italian-English Bilingual Edition

Tiziano Broggiato

Translated from the Italian

by Patricia Hanley and Maria Laura Mosco

Guernica - Essential Translations Series 9

TORONTO – BUFFALO – BERKELEY – LANCASTER (U.K.) 2012

Contents

Preface

Elogio della fuga - Flight's Elegy

Elogio della fuga

Flight’s Elegy

Parca lux - Parca Lux

Il contagio di Celan

Celan’s Affliction

Voce

A voice

12 Maggio

May 12th

Visita a Treblinka

Visit to Treblinka

Lì

There

Nulla resta della tua fuga:

Nothing is left of your flight

È lo stesso tempo in bilico

It is the same time of uncertainty

Umbra sine spe

Umbra Sine Spe

Finestre - The View Beyond

Finestra di grattacielo

Window of a Skyscraper

Centro di salute mentale

Mental Health Centre

Al di là dei vetri

Beyond these windows

Le terre riemerse - Resurgent Lands

Ritorno a Peschiera del Garda

Return to Peschiera del Garda

Breve diario dalla terra riemersa

Brief Diary from a Resurgent Land

Anima corallii - Anima Corallii

Così

So

Crisalide

Chrysalis

L’uccello marino

The sea bird

Precluse ogni memoria

The silent truce

Il portale scorto a malapena

The entrance barely visible

Alla funzione domenicale

At Sunday Mass, he liked to

Lugano 5:50

Lugano 5:50

Nella tua mente rimasta fanciulla

In your mind a child remains l

Non conoscevano loro

They didn’t know

Proteggimi

Protect me

– Non partirò. Non andrò

– I won’t leave. I won’t go anywhere

La tarda estate entra nella stanza

Late summer enters the room

Per la tua troppo innocente esistenza

It is your too-innocent life which

È sempre stata la mia persecuzione

My torment always

Anima corallii

Anima Corallii

Lasciati trasportare dal fiume ombroso

Let yourself be carried by the shaded river

In ciascun giorno della mia voce

With my voice, each day

«I gabbiani del Tevere

"No Tiber seagull

Notes

Acknowledgements

About the Author/ Translator

Copyright

Preface

This translation of a nearly complete selection from Tiziano Broggiato’s fourth, and prize winning volume, Parca lux, came about almost by chance when, in 2002, it was discovered in florence in a bookstore on a table laden with contemporary Italian poetry. It was another year before we, the translators, learned that it had won Italy’s prestigious Montale prize in that same year, 2002. Meanwhile, we had been granted the authority to be its sole translators into english. one hesitates to call it fate after an extraordinary decade of living closely with this remarkable work but it may be worth noting that Parcae means the fates in Latin: Parca, therefore, is a