Erminia Passannanti "In Memoria". Poem.

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  Erminia Passannanti

"In Memoria"


Vero triste dettato

mentre con la guancia premuta

contro la terra nuda

vedevo la bambina tutta sporca

corrermi incontro per corridoi d'erba

e l'aria intorno frolla

era come la vita soptto la pioggia

quando con padre e madre

 

 

Tetre carcasse abbandonate

nei prati verdi delle ocse tolte

l'una arruginita coricata sul fianco

quasi dormisse dove spuntano

nell'ombra bacche bianche

l'altra rimasta in piedi

incoronata di malva e pungitopo

nei suoi tondi segreti d'oltresponda

 

Lenta lumaca dall'involucro leso

in cui il cielo rimbomba

tra le pareti concave - presa

così nei suoi umori autunnali

che dalla terra sa come il piede

s'infossa - come in un solo mattino

si schiudano le larve inosservate. 


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“In Memoriam”


True sad dictation
while with my cheek pressed against the naked earth
I saw the baby girl covered in filth
as she ran to meet me down corridors of grass

and the air as moist around us was
as life under the falling rain

when with my father and mother

 

Dreary wrecks abandoned

in the meadows of the things subtracted  -
one bent on his side to rust
as if asleep in the shadow where

white berries blossom,
the other still on her feet
with a crown of holly and dwarf mallow
in her coiled secrets of the other bank.

Slow snail with a cracked shell
through the concavities of which
the skies rumbles,
trapped like that in the autumn sweats,
who from the earth can tell  how the foot
sinks down, or how within one morning

grubs hatch,  unobserved.

 

 

Erminia Passannanti

dalla raccolta Macchina, Manni Editore, 2000
(translated by Michael Pickering>Rip Bulkeley>Erminia Passannanti) 

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Biografia

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BIOGRAPHY Erminia Passannanti was educated in Foreign Languages and Literatures (Italian, English, and French) at the University of Salerno (Italy). In 1988, she obtained a First-Class Honours Degree (Cum Magna Laude:100/110 e Lode) from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. In 2004, she obtained her first Ph.D. in Italian literature at University College London with a doctoral thesis on the work of Italian poet, literary translator and essayist, Franco Fortini, involving   XXth Century Cultural History, History of Ideas, Poetry and Literary Criticism and Translation Theory.   In 2014 she was granted a second Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Media Communication (Brunel University, England) with a thesis on Italian cinema and religious censorship. In 2000. she won the Italian state competition ("Concorso a cattedra") to become a full school professor. Her research ranges from philosophy of literature, history of ideas, translation studies and film criticism. He ac...
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