Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

Six Poems by Edoardo Sanguineti
Translated by Robert Hahn and Michela Martini
Robert Hahn and Michela Martini have translated the poetry of
Giorgio Caproni, Gabriella Leto, Davide Rondoni, and Edoardo
Sanguineti. Their translations have appeared in The Literary Review
and Poetry International (in addition, translations by Hahn have appeared
in Modern Poetry in Translation, Gradiva, International Poetry
Review, and The Marlboro Review.) Hahn, a poet, essayist and translator,
has published several books of poetry, most recently No Messages
(Notre Dame) and All Clear (University of South Carolina).
His essays may be found in Parnassus, The Southern Review, The
Sewanee Review, TriQuarterly, Raritan and other journals. Michela
Martini, a native of Genoa, Italy, received her Master’s in Italian
literature from the University of Genoa. Now living in the United
States, where she lectures, translates, and works as a free-lance
writer, she has taught Italian language and culture at Suffolk University,
Indiana University, Cabrillo College, and the University of
California at Santa Cruz.
On the Poetry of Edoardo Sanguineti
and Its Translation
Edoardo Sanguineti is one of the leading figures of the post-
Montale period and a major influence on younger generations of
Italian poets drawn to formal and linguistic experiment. He was a
founding and leading member of the Italian neo-avant-garde movement,
espousing a poetics of automatic writing and playfulness,
rooted in surrealism, collage, and chance. His poetry contains elements
of modernism (Joycean verbal experimentation, irony, absurdity)
and of post-modernism (pastiche, self-consciousness, and
a sense of language as independent reality). Although he is particularly
known for his work of the ‘60s and ‘70s—which had a
dauntingly polyglot dimension—he has continued to develop his
poetry in recent decades, often in more accessible directions.
The poems translated here are from his major collection Il gatto
lupesco. Poesie 1982-2001 (Le Comete, Feltrinelli Editore, Milano,
2002).