Seven poems by Edoardo Sanguineti, with translations and an introduction by Will Schutt
Edoardo Sanguineti (left) & Will Schutt
Translator’s Note
What are we to make of Edoardo Sanguineti’s nearly sixty-year career as a poet, critic, librettist, novelist, playwright, political figure, and translator? Which Sanguineti are we to favor? “Sanguineti the Last Marxist,” who nods wistfully toward the German philosopher in his poems, and who served as an independent MP on the Italian Communist Party ticket? Or “Sanguineti the Academic,” who spent decades teaching literature at the University of Genoa and authored several books of literary criticism? What about “Sanguineti the Avant-Gardist,” whose very first, difficult poems – written in the early 1950s, when the poet was in his early twenties – helped spawn the experimental literature that would typify Italian letters a decade later? Couldn’t we think of Sanguineti as a late Romantic whose occasionally downhearted, often scathing vision undercuts the wit and wordtrickery of “Sanguineti the Rapper” (a late, self-appointed nickname)?
Above all else, perhaps, Sanguineti is a poet of speed, a sort of short-distance runner across the white page. His poems are restless, frantic, often brief, propelled by colons and qualified by parentheses. Maybe Sanguineti was recreating in writing what he could not create on stage; his childhood dreams of becoming a dancer were dashed when he was wrongly diagnosed with a heart condition.
To convey the fleet-footed quality of Sanguineti’s poems, a translator must keep pace. And I have allowed myself, in several instances visible here, to play fast and loose. My ambition has been to match Sanguineti’s speed, by ear and instinct, as much as to render an accurate, line-by-line translation. One example of the kind of liberties I’ve taken can be found in the poem “Da che cosa (mi chiedo).” Sanguineti writes “scappo…(dal mio essere morto): (un molle morto): (scappo da una mia mala morte).” How is one supposed to relay at once the opposite meaning and phonetic proximity of the words “molle” (feeble, soft) and “mala” (evil, bad)? A literal translation is too ponderous for a poem about galloping away from the endgame: “I escape…(from being dead): (a feeble/soft dead): (I escape from an evil death).”
My translation reads: “I run…(from my death): (a sweet death): (I run from a sleep-with-the-fishes death).”
While betraying the letter, I still hope that Sanguineti would appreciate the combination, a la Sanguineti, of poetic and popular diction, and I justify the betrayal by telling myself that, apart from the sonic equivalent of “sweet” and “sleep,” my translation also retains the original poem’s out-of-breath quality.
Pattern may be the source of pleasure in literature, but there is such an abundance of associative pattern in Sanguineti that the system is driven to the brink of disorder. Like the paranoid son in Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols,” Sanguineti seems to read – or, rather, write – all experience as a puzzle. And because the elements in his poems are so close fitting, the translator’s task is fraught; misplace a single piece and the picture falls apart. Such resistance to translation may be the mark of Sanguineti’s singularity.
—Will Schutt
La Triste, L’Incostante
by Edoardo Sanguinetila triste, l’incostante, l’aggressiva, la morta: (quella che fu il mio tropico
di Cancro: e l’altra, che fu il mio anello di Saturno): la contegnosa,
la spaiata, la matta:
me le voglio qui tutte, adesso, insieme, a mangiarmi:
i miei polsi aperti, la mia lurida lingua, le mie docili dita, il mio fegato
fragile: (e il mio cuore, è l’usanza, fatto a pezzi): (e il mio cervello
già raggrinzito, e il mio ormai tenero sesso):
tutto il resto è per te,
se resta un resto, dopo tanto succhiare, e se resisti, lí a sparecchiarmi,
l’ultima, in cucina:
l’affaticata, la nervosa, la superstiziosa, la morbida:
The Sad One, The Inconstant One
from Scartabello, 1980
by Edoardo Sanguinetithe sad one, the inconstant one, the aggressive one, the one who died:
(my Tropic of Cancer and my Ring of Saturn): the polite one,
the funny one, the nutcase:
I want all of them here, now, together, to eat me:
my slit wrists, my lurid tongue, my frail fingers, my ailing
liver: (and my heart, as per usual, in shards): (and my brain
already shriveled, and my dick long limp):
all the rest is yours
if a rest remains after so much sucking, and if you linger in the kitchen,
the last one, to clear me away:
the weary one, the nervous one, the superstitious one, the tender:
translated from Italian by Will Schutt
“Alle 18.15 Mi Telefona Vasko”
by Edoardo Sanguinetialle 18.15 mi telefona Vasko: sei sveglio? mi dice: certo, gli dico: e
ho già parlato con mia moglie: (così il telegramma è stato tutto inutile):
(ma non importa, è chiaro):
e ho già scritto la seconda poesia della giornata
(di oggi, 3 giugno):
bene, dice Vasko, ma è proprio la settimana
santa, allora, per te: (questa: della Knaak-Poetry):
“At 6:15 P.M. Vasko Phones”
from Reisebilder, 1971
by Edoardo Sanguinetiat 6:15 p.m. Vasko phones: you awake? he says: sure, I say: and
I’ve already talked to my wife: (so the telegram was a total waste):
(but it’s no matter, not to worry):
and I’ve already penned the second poem of the day
(today, June 3rd):
well, says Vasko, this really is a lucky
week, then, for you: (this week: of Knaak-Poetry):
translated from Italian by Will Schutt“La Voce Di Mio Padre”
by Edoardo Sanguinetila voce di mio padre è registrata in un nastro rubricato “Venezia ‘66”:
(l’altra pista è occupata da una sinfonia di Mozart):
si tratta di una serie
di telefonate d’epoca: davanti a quel microfono intercettato, sfilano i miei tre
maschi bambini, mia moglie, vari parenti di mia moglie, un paio di sue amiche
(e c’è anche mia suocera, che parla con la salumiera di Torino, un’emiliana,
suppongo, e ordina bottiglie di Lurisia):
il passaggio fulminante (e che mi ha fulminato
lí, martedí, nel pieno della mia infelicità): (e che fu un tratto tipico, certo, per lui):
(e che ha deciso molte cose, cosí, per me e per la mia vita): (cito a memoria, adesso)
è quando dice, dunque, a Federico:
quando gli altri sono contenti, anche io sono contento:
“My Father's Voice”
from Postkarten, 1972-77
by Edoardo Sanguinetimy father’s voice is recorded on a tape labeled “Venice ’66”:
(the flipside features a Mozart symphony):
the tape contains a series
of phone calls from that time: my three boys, my wife, various relatives
of my wife, and a couple of her friends got reeled in by that wiretap
(there’s even my mother-in-law ordering bottles of Lurisia from a woman
with a deli in Turin, an Emilian is my guess):
the electrifying clip (which electrified me
on Tuesday in a fit of unhappiness): (and was a typical trait of his):
(which determined many things for me and my life): (I’m quoting from memory)
is when he says, then, to my son:
when others are happy, I’m happy too:
translated from Italian by Will Schutt