Translated and edited by Ned Condini
Paperback, xix—223
pages
ISBN 978-0-9725271-6-3
$20
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CARLO BETOCCHI was born in Turin in 1899, and moved to Florence as a child. He wrote for the magazine Strapaese, which emphasized the provincial and folksy character of poetic inspiration. Sent to the fron in 1917, in 1918-1920 Betocchi was a volunteer in Libya. After a stint in France, he lived in Florence from 1928 to 1938, and founded the Catholic-oriented magazine Il Frontespizio along with Piero Bargellini. From 1961 to 1977 he edited L'Approdo Letterario (Turin). Apart from the Hermetics and post-war experimentalisms, Betocchi developed his own scabrous and religious voice in L'estate di san martino (1961), Un passo, Un altro passo (1967), Ultimissime (1968-1973) Poesie del sabato (1930-1980), and Poesie disperse e inedite (1984). His collected works, Tutte le poesie, were published by Mondadori in 1984. He died in Brodighera in 1986.
NED CONDINI, writer, translator, and literary critic, was the recipient of the PEN/Poggoli Award for his versions of poet Mario Luzi (1986) and of the Bordighera Prize for his rendering of Jane Tassi's Andsongsongsonglessness (2002). His short stories and poems have appeared in Translation, The Mississippi Review, Prairie Schooner, Partisan Review, Mid-American Review, Negative Capability, Italian Americana, Chelsea, Yale Italian Poetry, the Litchfield Review, and the Village Voice. His books of poetry include Rimbaud in Ubria (1994) and quartettsatz (1996). The Earth's Wall, his translation of the poetry of Giorgio Caproni, was published by Chelsea Editions in 2004. In November 2002 Condini placed first in the Winning Writers War Poetry Contest, New. For the MLA, Condini has just completed an anthology of modern and contemporary Italian poetry, Yet Fire Is All.
"Romanesque in his archaic and realistic christianity... a worker's figure more than an intellectual's... a launcher of bridges, a raiser of levees. No poet adheres like him to a concrete human landscape."~ Georgio Caproni
"Grace in all its freest forms is the contant pitch of Betocchi's poetry. Grace and a conscious melancholy that tends to reduce the space of darkness, and render vain the forces of evil."
~ Carlo Bo
"Successful translation—and especially the translation of poetry—from one's native language into one's adopted langue is a rare achievement. Ned Condini's English version of fine poet Mario Lutzi are remarkable for their boldness and flair."~ William Weaver
Selections:
Il vecchio: stravaganze, sventura, destino: 2 / The Old Man: Oddities, Bad Luck, and Destiny: 2
Nel cortile di quad'ero ragazzo / In My Childhood Courtyard
Il vecchio: stravaganze,
sventura, destino: 25
La sventura ha due sempiterni sigilli:
l'uno da dio, l'altro dall'Avversario.
E tra i due si dibatte l'infelice
che n'è colpito, e a cui sembra che nulla
ormai volglia l'Uno senza l'Altro. Busca
giorni, cosi, storditi dall'ingenuo
fantasma del suo passato—vede—
si dilegua, e intanto vien preso nella pania
di quel presente che gli lascia un solo
spiraglio: tremare del suo avvenire.
Questo i più non lo sanno: poiché è dato
a tutti di dimenticarlo. Lo sappiano
ora da me, che non so altro che questo.
The Old Man: Oddities
Bad Luck, and Destiny: 25
Misfortune has two everlasting seals:
One from the Enemy, and the other from God.
The wretch smittem by them fumbles between
the two: it seems to him that One does not
want anything without the Other. Sohe grabs days struck by the native
ghost of his past that—now he sees— goes by,
and in the meantime he gets ensnared in the
net of that present that leaves him one outlet:
to dread the future. Most people don't know this.
In fact, they all may well forget it.
Let them now learn from me, who know but this.
Nel cortile di quand'ero ragazzo
O cortile nel sole!
ombra e sole che rendi
quello di cui tu splendi
alla quiete che vuoleCome i tetti si librano
in frastagli fantastici
io ne vedo sui lastrici
ifantasmi che liberano.Passo passo scavalco
quelle aeree terrazze
dove fu di ragazze
ed ora è d'ombre il canto.È il mio piede che è pazzo
o l'azzuro s'arrende?
Un filo a piombo pende
dal mio cuor di ragazzo.Pesa il mio cuore: salta
la mia animal: vivo
come quello che scrivo,
di qualcosa che esaltae che mortifica. Ave,
o dolcissima chiave
della mia eternità:
o mio piombo che sa.
In My Childhood Courtyard
O courtyard in the sun!
shadow and sun: you lead
whatever you shine on
to the peace that it wants.As the roofs overspread
in jagged revelries
on the pavement I see
the ghosts that they set free.Step by step I trudge up
those airy terraces
where long ago girls sang
and now, their effigiesIs it my foot that falters
or does the sky surrender?
A plumb line is suspended
from my unartful heart.My heart is heavy: my
soul leaps: I live
like what I write about.
by something that ennoblesand humbles. Hail to thee,
plumb line that understands:
you sweetest key
to my eternity.