I'm very sorry but the next 7 translations I should have posted today aren't yet completely ready.
I hope you will be so patient to wait a week more!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A little delay
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Third 7 translations already posted!
I’m slowly posting all the translations of the Italian original posts.
The plan is to post a page once a week, that means 7 posts at once – except this one you’re just reading – which seems to me a good rhythm to give time for the reading and to reach soon the current posts on the original blog.
All the original posts were translated – if well or badly, you’re going to see – that means that there will be absolute no loss in the passage between the original and the English blog. Further, I have chosen to post the new texts with new date and time reporting the original ones at the end of each text together with the permalink to the original post, that means that clicking on the original date you will directly reach the original post. In this way, you can freely choose to read the poem in original language. It seems to me a good solution to give this blog a little more independence without forgetting that it is however an adaptation.
In the future, I don’t know if I will always be able to follow regularly the rhythm of the posting of the original blog, but I’ll try my best to be as punctual as possible.
Well, I hope you enjoy the blog and, if you feel, let me know what you think about it.
See you in a week!
Winter [V]
Snowdrifts
hung in the balance
on the bicycle spokes.
Originally posted in Italian on March 4, 2008 at 23:31
A love supreme in a car full of rage
Red points white squares
tick sticks pinching
now wide ahead – in the neck –
now narrow back – in the rear –
streets squirted of city-black
on the shines of raining saxophones
alternately pressing
keyboards of traffic-lights sprayer:
a shameless jazz rhythm
on the traffic jam of six o’clock p. m.
Originally posted in Italian on February 26, 2008 at 23:54
Results of the pool «vote blank»
Last Sunday night were closed both of the polls so solemnly called two weeks ago in order to vote the most and the least appreciated poems from Per chi rimangono accese le luci (For whom stay on the lights).
You will find the results at the end of the right side-bar, where they will remain still for some days, before been archived in the telematic nothingness for ever, with no regrets.
The results are almost amazing: no one would have imagined such a shared indifference to a stupid idea made with such ignored seriousness, as the one seen in this poll.
I must confess, that I had never expected a piece like A love supreme in a car full of rage to win in the poll for the most appreciated pieces. It’s true, that it’s one of those I felt more, but I considered it at most an outsider in this fight till the last (wrong) click against more experienced and tactically wise pieces which can be found in the collection. There would be almost to doubt about the movement ability of somebody’s finger, or at least to suspect some confusion caused by the length of both the lists, but this is not the moment to start some conspiracy theory. We are starting that tomorrow instead, between 10:00 and 10:17 a.m. GTM +1, for those who would like to express some comments.
In order to enjoy in the best way possible this silly victory, I’m going to post soon the winning poem, while I’m going to ignore completely the otherwise classified ones. In this way, no further recriminations or regrets will be caused among the many supporters.
For what concerns the other poll, the one about the worst pieces, we cannot proclaim a winner, because it is not admitted by the rules which I have just invented, more than a winner. Sure is however, that some pieces didn’t work just like they had to in the communication passage between author and reader, and I solemnly promise to watch them again and with more empty eyes.
Another statistic which seems of some importance to me, is the sum of the votes taken by every section, which still confirms to me that the one dedicated to Heidelberg is definitely the most successful, while the first one and the last two sections (versi sparsi/uncollected verses and mal-dette/badly said or just cursed) pay maybe a minor cohesion by one side, and the presence of some younger and naives pieces on the other one, apart, of course, from the obvious critical incompetence of the voting readers.
All considered, I would say that it was an unrepeatable experience, which means that it should never be repeated until the next Big Bang, but I am no more so sure that this would be something for what it’s worth to keep on hoping.
Originally posted in Italian on February 26, 2008 at 23:50
In order to enjoy in the best way possible this silly victory, I’m going to post soon the winning poem, while I’m going to ignore completely the otherwise classified ones. In this way, no further recriminations or regrets will be caused among the many supporters.
For what concerns the other poll, the one about the worst pieces, we cannot proclaim a winner, because it is not admitted by the rules which I have just invented, more than a winner. Sure is however, that some pieces didn’t work just like they had to in the communication passage between author and reader, and I solemnly promise to watch them again and with more empty eyes.
Another statistic which seems of some importance to me, is the sum of the votes taken by every section, which still confirms to me that the one dedicated to Heidelberg is definitely the most successful, while the first one and the last two sections (versi sparsi/uncollected verses and mal-dette/badly said or just cursed) pay maybe a minor cohesion by one side, and the presence of some younger and naives pieces on the other one, apart, of course, from the obvious critical incompetence of the voting readers.
All considered, I would say that it was an unrepeatable experience, which means that it should never be repeated until the next Big Bang, but I am no more so sure that this would be something for what it’s worth to keep on hoping.
Originally posted in Italian on February 26, 2008 at 23:50
Winter [IV]
Old basket:
the cat tightens softly
some purring bellows.
Originally posted in Italian on February 24, 2008 at 23:29
Decisions for a garden (by Attilio Bertolucci)
We have to revalue this garden
enclose it where is open with hell-blue mashes
replacing the rotten poles
pale for the age with other ones
just barked and so white-coloured
that they gild themselves in the air slowly
and happily and the rains and the snows
yet to come are going to silver them
so that their age cannot be more distinguished.
At the right time remember to send
here the seeds in order to take care
that this earth become fruitful
which produces only high nettles
and rough dogtooth violet and from a stroken tree
wild excessive sweet plums.
Worth of such wretched land
the west exposure and thus
on its slope the evening sun
brushing our faces, old hound
dog on the track between sky and woods
sublime for their highness and their black tangle of branches.
(Attilio Bertolucci, from: Viaggio d'inverno, 1971)
Originally posted in Italian on February 20, 2008 at 0:01
Apocryphal koans: Case II
A monk asked Yün-men, the patriarch: – What is the last truth of Buddhism?
Yün-men answered: – I can’t tell you the truth without lying.
Poem
Now that you listened to the patriarch
tell me if he lied or not.
If you affirm it, you’ll betray the patriarch
if you deny it, you’ll ignore his lesson.
Then tell me: did he lie or not?
Originally posted in Italian on February 15, 2008 at 22:56
The first pool «vote blank» opened!
The first poll of «writing blank» was just opened. To be more precise, also the second one was opened at the same time… what a waste!
As you’ll soon understand looking at your right if you are right-handed and at your right instead, if you are left-handed but you always wished to be right-handed, you can vote the best and the worst poems of the already very unknown collection Per chi rimangono accese le luci (For whom stay on the lights). Ok, it’s fundamentally a game, but still your feedback as lucky or unlucky readers of this book represents for me a rare confrontation opportunity, since I cannot reach you at home. You have two weeks time to vote starting from… no, not yet… a little patience, please… NOW! You can vote more than a poem at once, and it is even possible to change your vote, if you change your mind. In this way we will avoid such tragic scenes as those recently seen in parliament. At the end, the most beautiful and the most awful poem will be elected, plus some consolation titles like poem «talent», «congeniality» and: «photogenic»! Compulsory requirements for your participation to the poll are:
Don’t complain, we really needed to do some selection!
And then, what is left to say? Vote, vote, vote! That’s you at home with your vote, who choose the best way you wanted it in your… oh no, no fear… this happens only with real elections!
Originally posted in Italian on February 10, 2008 at 19:59
- having read the book (ok, so far you see; I underestimated you);
- ability to count to 100 (without the help of your fingers!);
- ability to speak at least 2 old non-indoeuroean languages according to the EU level B1, and among these one must be Old High-Haitian;
- having watched at least once for five minutes the Italian program «Maria De Filippi’s amici» (and having enjoyed it).
Don’t complain, we really needed to do some selection!
And then, what is left to say? Vote, vote, vote! That’s you at home with your vote, who choose the best way you wanted it in your… oh no, no fear… this happens only with real elections!
Originally posted in Italian on February 10, 2008 at 19:59
Friday, April 11, 2008
Heidelberg: am Neckar
Only you could suggest
that narrow bridge measure
which the sea overflows instead
in the horizon of inextinguishable sunsets
and rather than the frameless blue mirrors
you looked at streets benches mansards
and turned down caps
between the light stairs of the stream
- a veil the water rumpled a little -
and you didn’t try to be deep.
Between these banks of yours
between the pylons dictated by the bridge
relics and words of mine came down together.
Originally posted in Italian on February 8, 2008 at 0:50
Drawing by Katalin Szabó.
One for whom it's worth to let the lights on.
Originally posted in Italian on February 6, 2008 at 5:36
For whom the lights stay on
Then we looked at the faint
lights of the balconies as at pins
which made holes in the brick darkness
of the night as showing some gaps
of a higher pastel sky.
And going down to the street we didn’t mind
a stair darker than the others to come:
we accepted with leaf heart
the chance to be met.
Originally posted in Italian on February 5, 2008 at 14:56
The paper door
The paper door
you let flow on your thumb
doesn't shelter from the wind
it encloses its breath.
Originally posted in Italian on February 3, 2008 at 20:12
Apocryphal zen: the project
Apocryphal koans, barbaric haikus and other zen poetry are the three sections in which the project «apocryphal zen», on which I’m working since about two years, is divided.
Zen literature, both the traditional one of koans and gathas and the one which was strongly influenced by Zen, as the writing of haikus, has surely signed an important step of my travelling along the way of poetry, and so in my inner search and in my attitude towards everything else. Writing «apocryphal» texts to be put next to the original ones in my inner reading, was an automatic reflex for me, a personal urgency; posting them here I hope they can, I won’t say help someone else in his search, but maybe take him near to this nonsensical universe which is Zen, just because I know how much it could give everyone of us.
So the project «apocryphal zen» was born, though Zen literature is all but holy writing or canon to subvert: on the contrary… The title is then the result of a kind of self-irony, which is to find in the texts, and which comes just from the awareness of the absolute absurdity of a pretended apocryphal Zen, but also from the awareness, as a consequence, of its right to be.
I don’t feel particularly to add something about Zen literature: the ignorant reader will be always regarded as a precious guest, who I’m never going to treat with paternalist didactic; on the other side, for the reader who is already bumped into the crooked ways of Zen – he lucky – it will be more than less necessary to remind him to forget. I’ve added and am still going to add – it’s true – something about the single sections – koans, haiku and other zen poetry – but that’s nothing I consider necessary to get introduced in the reading. Pure empting.
Since a little bit, the collaboration with the musician and dear friend of mine Giuseppe Rizzo from Palermo has become a central role in the development of the project. All was born in a completely casual and spontaneous way through his reading of the text which was then single, and which is now the first case of the apocryphal koans, posted here on the blog two days ago. He took inspiration for a piece which he called steel flower and which you can listen to on his homepage. For a long time nothing has followed this extemporary episode, until we had the idea, that it would be maybe interesting, in this multimedia epoch – of crossing the ways, as I say – to put music next to the texts, without necessarily setting univocal links between a precise text and a precise musical track, aware that inspiration cannot be forced and that the trap of “wanting to illustrate” is always a threat.
What the final place of the product of this project will be, is not yet clear, but surely we are very curious to see its feedback online.
Originally posted in Italian on January 29, 2008 at 14:10
So the project «apocryphal zen» was born, though Zen literature is all but holy writing or canon to subvert: on the contrary… The title is then the result of a kind of self-irony, which is to find in the texts, and which comes just from the awareness of the absolute absurdity of a pretended apocryphal Zen, but also from the awareness, as a consequence, of its right to be.
I don’t feel particularly to add something about Zen literature: the ignorant reader will be always regarded as a precious guest, who I’m never going to treat with paternalist didactic; on the other side, for the reader who is already bumped into the crooked ways of Zen – he lucky – it will be more than less necessary to remind him to forget. I’ve added and am still going to add – it’s true – something about the single sections – koans, haiku and other zen poetry – but that’s nothing I consider necessary to get introduced in the reading. Pure empting.
Since a little bit, the collaboration with the musician and dear friend of mine Giuseppe Rizzo from Palermo has become a central role in the development of the project. All was born in a completely casual and spontaneous way through his reading of the text which was then single, and which is now the first case of the apocryphal koans, posted here on the blog two days ago. He took inspiration for a piece which he called steel flower and which you can listen to on his homepage. For a long time nothing has followed this extemporary episode, until we had the idea, that it would be maybe interesting, in this multimedia epoch – of crossing the ways, as I say – to put music next to the texts, without necessarily setting univocal links between a precise text and a precise musical track, aware that inspiration cannot be forced and that the trap of “wanting to illustrate” is always a threat.
What the final place of the product of this project will be, is not yet clear, but surely we are very curious to see its feedback online.
Originally posted in Italian on January 29, 2008 at 14:10
Apocryphal koans
The apocryphal koans that began to appear yesterday on the blog, are another part of the project «apocryphal zen», on which I’m working currently. I’m going to explain better what it is about in the next post, here I’m going to tell some words about the apocryphal koans.
In Zen tradition, the term koan is used for a particular problem or theme, by the study and long meditation of which, it is possible to reach the illumination. Practically, it is an anecdote, a lesson or a short dialogue between master and pupil; it looks like an inexplicable enygma, which doesn’t follow the logical categories, the consequential logic nor the non-contradiction principle, because the truth of Zen can be caught only on the other side – or maybe I should say on this side – of the intellectual categories.
Collections of these ‘cases’ were compiled by masters and scholars of Ch’an Buddhism (Chinese ancestor of Zen), who used to add also some verses (absolute not lyrical) and even a commentary of the case, often much more obscure than the case itself. In comparison with this form, I’ve kept the presence of the poem after the koan, but I’ve renounced in adding also the commentary, mainly for lightness reasons.
Now, before forgetting all that you’ve just read, remember that the koan can help only those who cultivate the «great doubt» caused by the reading till the end.
Originally posted in Italian on January 28, 2008 at 21:15
Collections of these ‘cases’ were compiled by masters and scholars of Ch’an Buddhism (Chinese ancestor of Zen), who used to add also some verses (absolute not lyrical) and even a commentary of the case, often much more obscure than the case itself. In comparison with this form, I’ve kept the presence of the poem after the koan, but I’ve renounced in adding also the commentary, mainly for lightness reasons.
Now, before forgetting all that you’ve just read, remember that the koan can help only those who cultivate the «great doubt» caused by the reading till the end.
Originally posted in Italian on January 28, 2008 at 21:15
Apocryphal koans: Case I
Two monks pick up a flower and offer it to Buddha.
The first one says: – It’s beautiful.
The second one says: – It’s dying.
Poem
Without looking at the two monks’ faces
tell me now if they are smiling or not.
In front of the splendour, face to face with death
how do you stay disarmed?
Originally posted in Italian on January 27, 2008 at 4:27
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Winter [III]
I’ve been waiting one hour and a half at the post office
standing in the line I’ve grown older
no minute.
Originally posted in Italian on January 23, 2008 at 1:59
Winter [II]
Rainy night
the handles of the umbrella
remain dry.
Originally posted in Italian on January 18, 2008 at 18:45
Barbaric Haikus
This one posted down here is the first of many barbaric haikus you’re going to read in this blog. I call them «barbaric» (if there is a god of literature, I hope he will forgive the carduccian reference) because they don’t follow the traditional Japanese metric made by 5-7-5 syllables for three verses, but they are instead free metric, also if they often tend to be a short-long-short sequence.
The reason of this not following the rule (however by now renewed by others too – Japanese, if you mind the Auctoritas) is that I don’t consider useful at all following metric rules (pedantically too, like certain fanatics suddenly possessed by the new trend) which are taken from another language exactly as they are.
Following the 5-7-5 rule because «it is so in Japanese» is not interesting for me. Following it because it is believed that a fixed form is useful, could still be a more interesting choice and it gains my respect (although I still believe that it would be better to find a more suitable form for the Italian language). I have chosen instead not to follow it, but to search a different affinity with the tradition of this genre. This affinity should be all in the way of writing haikus: haiku is firstly an interior search – although so very few people seems to remember it – which is aimed to the suspension of the sense we usually attribute the subject (intellectual or emotive). This suspension is reached through an extreme and disarming imaginative simplicity, by finding, in the extremely precise detail of nature, the empty container of the inner, and outer, emptiness. It is really a practice of empting, and for this I tried to avoid the always western temptation of reintroducing the sense by those means we all well know: metaphor, symbol or also the relativism of modern allegory; (that rhetorical language which the true haiku always dismisses and never causes). I felt, however, that it was possible to handle, with extreme cure, those instruments, though always rhetorical, which go instead in the direction of the signifier, of the ‘empty sign’: onomatopoeic, alliteration, assonance, and a kind of ‘large’ analogy too. Here, but everywhere else too, it will be mainly up to the reader not to fill again what was already emptied during the writing.
A good thematic affinity with the tradition of the genre is generally maintained, if it’s true that you find these haikus grouped by season (but you are not going to find regularly the kigo, the canonical reference to the season); I’m also interested in giving space to the human world (which I don’t necessarily feel in contradiction with nature) and to modernity, and this means that a part of inspiration comes from the city, from modern metropolis, especially in a fifth section of haikus titled «Out of season».
Of course, form is the container of emptiness, and we know how important it is in the extremely ritual Japanese culture, which is permeated of Zen. But it is useless to imitate what you are not; I am still a western – a gaijin, as they would say – and if I disguise myself perfectly as an oriental man, I surely look ridiculous.
I’m sorry for the length of this post, but this clarification was necessary. For the brevity we have the haikus.
Originally posted in Italian on January 17, 2008 at 18:19
Following the 5-7-5 rule because «it is so in Japanese» is not interesting for me. Following it because it is believed that a fixed form is useful, could still be a more interesting choice and it gains my respect (although I still believe that it would be better to find a more suitable form for the Italian language). I have chosen instead not to follow it, but to search a different affinity with the tradition of this genre. This affinity should be all in the way of writing haikus: haiku is firstly an interior search – although so very few people seems to remember it – which is aimed to the suspension of the sense we usually attribute the subject (intellectual or emotive). This suspension is reached through an extreme and disarming imaginative simplicity, by finding, in the extremely precise detail of nature, the empty container of the inner, and outer, emptiness. It is really a practice of empting, and for this I tried to avoid the always western temptation of reintroducing the sense by those means we all well know: metaphor, symbol or also the relativism of modern allegory; (that rhetorical language which the true haiku always dismisses and never causes). I felt, however, that it was possible to handle, with extreme cure, those instruments, though always rhetorical, which go instead in the direction of the signifier, of the ‘empty sign’: onomatopoeic, alliteration, assonance, and a kind of ‘large’ analogy too. Here, but everywhere else too, it will be mainly up to the reader not to fill again what was already emptied during the writing.
A good thematic affinity with the tradition of the genre is generally maintained, if it’s true that you find these haikus grouped by season (but you are not going to find regularly the kigo, the canonical reference to the season); I’m also interested in giving space to the human world (which I don’t necessarily feel in contradiction with nature) and to modernity, and this means that a part of inspiration comes from the city, from modern metropolis, especially in a fifth section of haikus titled «Out of season».
Of course, form is the container of emptiness, and we know how important it is in the extremely ritual Japanese culture, which is permeated of Zen. But it is useless to imitate what you are not; I am still a western – a gaijin, as they would say – and if I disguise myself perfectly as an oriental man, I surely look ridiculous.
I’m sorry for the length of this post, but this clarification was necessary. For the brevity we have the haikus.
Originally posted in Italian on January 17, 2008 at 18:19
Winter [I]
Winter.
It is soon forgotten
the colour of the day.
Originally posted in Italian on January 16, 2008 at 0:38
Like in Ostend
Kicked away by the waves the buildings
eventually dropped
to the november-coloured sea.
The wind crushed to the cheeks
dumping the switched off merry-go-rounds and a dog
leaded astray by the storm of the previous days.
I remember you blowing then from your nose
every disgusting sealife
uprooted by the hair lying exile
on the winter beach along with the teeth
lost by the sea.
The shading of the foreshore
was updating in real time
the borderlines of a noman’s land.
Note of that was taken by the seagulls
lurking on the stilts and their heads
hooded in the wings.
Originally posted in Italian on January 9, 2008 at 1:26
intents
I cannot yet define precisely how the blog is going to be managed. The first idea was to offer some support for those who bump into the stuff I write or even give my work a web dimension. Then the idea of a diary came, which is actually not bad and probably will be the basis of the blog. However, thinking about it, these verses of mine are mainly meeting-points, good to give some appointments, or still better: good to let each other meet casually in them. As a consequence, I think I’m going to give space everything that can be adapted as a recognition sign for these meetings, trying to remain in the sphere of poetry (in a wide sense intended) and posting therefore also others’ works, though in minor measure, no matter if they are more or less known. Their verses will be introduced as preparatory quotations to the process of empting, also if they will be just guests of the blog, who want to contribute to this project. Except this, I haven’t got other particular ideas, at the moment everything is very unsteady and flexible: I hope it is going to remain in this way.
Originally posted in Italian on January 6, 2008 at 2:14
zero post
That’s it: some clicks and the web compresses and crams itself a little bit more. Some clicks and another little bit of telematic blank, photonic blank – deep darkness or bright glare – is filled up. Full, massed, stuffed, filled with other words, other images, other sounds. I ask myself how much space there is in the web, where it finishes and where its contents start interrupting each other.
Everyone looks for a space especially to fill it up with themselves, I feel instead the need of an empty space, but it can’t be the space of a vague and abstract infinity. On the contrary, it must be a precise, concrete, well defined space. Defined by what? By other words, sure, other images, other sounds, but made of another concentration, another density, another specific weight: no more contents, but containers – empty words, then, but defined, ready to receive by one side and let go by the other one.
Once the filling of the meaning, or the stuffing of the sense, is melted, only an empty shell to chew remains. «till the tooth falls.»
Originally posted in Italian on January 5, 2008 at 15:56
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