BIO
Claudia Russo was born in Enna, Italy, in 1987. In 2014 she obtained a degree in modern languages and literature from the university of Catania and now continues her studies of French language at the university of Rome, La Sapienza. While in Catania, she was active in a literary group under the direction of writer Mario Grasso and was published in an anthology edited by Enzo Marangelo. She is at work on her first book of poems.
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BIO
Margaret Saine was born in Germany and lives in Southern California, where she taught Spanish. She writes poetry and short stories in five languages, and regularly translates other poets. She has written prefaces for seven books of poetry. Her books in English are “Bodyscapes,” “Words of Art,” and 5 haiku chapbooks, plus several poetry mss. to be published: “Reading Your Lips”; “The Five Senses: Erotic Poems in Alphabetical Order”; “A Love in Winter”; and “Music of Reflected Light: Water Poems.” She is currently working on a volume of ekphrastic poems about music, art, and literature. In 2015 she published her Postwar childhood memoir “Ungeschicktes Kind” [Awkward Child] and a book of poems, “Das Flüchtige bleibt” [The Ephemeral Remains] in Germany. Her poetry has also appeared in Italy, France, Chile, Mexico, Jordania, India, and the Philippines. Margaret Saine is an editor of the California Poetry Quarterly, called CQ.
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*Claudia Russo’s poems are translated from original Italian into English by Margaret Saine.
MEDIATIONS—MEDIAZIONI
I
Se entrando in una donna
ti dimentichi di Dio
avrai recitato per il mondo
il tuo vero salmo.
Avrai il biasimo di colui che passa
Tremerai per la foglia.
Ma ricorda:
la foglia lo volle.
Se dell’atto che si compie
ti riempirai
nutrendoti del suo pane,
che male fai?
Cosa ne sa l’uomo del Vero
che scaturì dalla Luce?
La luce lo volle, per la luce.
E verrai risparmiata.
La Natura creò per la natura
la mela terrosa laggiù
l’ape per il fiore assopito
l’onda per la risacca.
E tu, diversa, rimanesti all’ombra
colpevole di abnegazione.
Che ti disse la risacca?
che ti disse?
Che anche l’anima riposa
su un’idea che la dimora.
forse la tua preghiera
sarà una donna
la sua trama infittita
ti insegnò la foglia
non una divinità.
I
If entering into a woman
you forget God,
you will have recited your true psalm
all over the world.
You will have whoever goes by blaspheming you
You will tremble for the leaf.
But remember:
the leaf wanted it.
If you have your fill
of the act in progress
nourishing you with its bread,
how can it be bad what you do?
What do humans know about Truth
that has gushed from Light?
The light wished it so, for the sake of light.
And you will be spared.
Nature created for nature’s sake
the earthy apple down there
the bee for the sleepy flower
the flow for the ebb.
And you, a different woman, stayed in the shade
guilty of self-denial.
What did the ebb tell you?
what did it say?
That even the soul rests
on an idea that stays.
Maybe your prayer
will be a woman,
the leaf taught you her thickened plot,
and not a divinity.
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II
C’è immobilità ragionata nella pietra
non c’è salita nel seme che piantasti.
La parola è nella materia irriverente.
un’aura che non puoi cantare
finché non dissolverai la tua radice
troppo pregna di umanità.
Finché sarai di tutti.
II
There is a reasoned immobility in the rock
there is no ascent in the seed you planted.
The word is inside irreverent matter,
an aura that you cannot sing
until you dissolve your root
too pregnant with humanity.
Until you will belong to all.
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III
L’ordine è dentro il grano che infuria
non nella madre che volle generare errori.
Il Respiro incontrollabile non vuole chiusura.
Non ha quiete per il campo, né paradiso per il tuo ventre.
III
The order is inside the grain that infuriates
not inside the mother who wanted to generate errors.
The uncontrollable Breath does not want closure.
There is no quiet in the field, nor paradise in your womb.
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IV
Nessuno sei tu.
Debole poeta che scrivi
seduto sopra la pietra
sulla pietra perduto.
IV
You are a nobody.
A weak poet, you write
sitting on a rock
lost on a rock.
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