GABRIELA FANTATO
The Form of Life
New and Selected Poems 1996-2009Translated by Emanuel di Pasquale
With a Preface by Giancarlo Pontiggia
Paperback, 183 pages
ISBN 978-0-9884787-0-1
$20
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GABRIELA FANTATO is a poet, playwright and essayist who takes the words of Marina Tsvetaeva as her point of departure: "I have loved everything with a farewell." Her poems roam through cityscapes observing external constrictions and experiencing internal expansions of memory and imagination. She is the editor-in-chief of the review La Mosca di Milano and co-editor of the anthology La Biblioteca delle Voci, a collection of interviews with twenty-five Italian poets (2006). Her poems have been circulated on the Internet, translated into many languages, and various of them have been set to music by Maurizio Erbi, Nicola Arnoldi and Mariela Pavia. Her plays in verse have been staged by major Italian theaters.The Form of Life contains selections from eight collections of poetry: Geografie a Nord / Northern Geography (2000), Moltitudine / Multitude (2001), Il Tempo Dovuto / The Given Time (1996-2005), La Profezia Era Il Mare / The Prophecy Was the Sea (2006), Codice Terrestre / Terrestrial Codex (2008), Leggere Variazioni Di Rotta / Reading the Routing Changes (2008), Inediti / Unpublished Poems (2007-2008), A Distanze Minime / At Minimal Distance (2009).
REVIEWS
"Gabriela Fantato's poetic outlook should never be interpreted in a realistic sense, but rather as a threshold where internal and external meet, where the mutable things of the world are related to the entangled wood of the heart." ~ Giancarlo Pontiggia, "Preface: Closed Spaces and Wide Openings of the Imagination."
Selections
From The Form of Life
Poet Gabriela Fantato
AI POCHI
I.Anche oggi il sole ha aperto il cielo
e dato forma alla collina,
sopra e sotto—il mondo davanti.Ieri è stato tutto un lavorìo di tagli
e incastri nel fondo del baule.
La vita un farsi estate e aspettare
dentro la paura.Nella fatica del paesaggio resta
unbianco ostinato
e la fuga verso est dove cresce
il tempo primo dell'invocazione
—segno a puntasecca, come se infinito.
TO THE FEWI.
Today as well the sun has opened the sky
and given shape to the hill,
over and under—the world ahead.Yesterday was all a labor of slashes
and grooves at the bottom of the suitcase.
Life a becoming of summer and waiting
inside fear.In the weariness of the landscape lingers
an obstinate whiteness
and this fleeing toward the east where
the original time of the invocation expands
—a drypoint sign, as if infinite.
II.Resta una fedeltà ai pochi
a fare il perimetro
e un giardino selvatico prima del bosco,
oscuro quanto quello.La strad—la strada è rossa,
dritta verso l'infanzia dove
sei sempre stato.Non sapresti dire se era vero
quel tanto girare di spalle,
non sai trovare il nome—la piega
dove la foce attende
il sangue come un'acqua che viene
e slitta, vedi s'avvicina.
II.A few remain faithful to
reaching the perimeter
and a wild garden before the forest,
just as dark.The street—the street is red,
heads straight toward the childhood where
you have always been.You could not say if all that
turning away was real,
you don't know where to find the name
—the wrinkle
where the river's mouth awaits
blood like water that comes
and slides; look, it's coming close.
III.Il sorriso copre l'assenza dei volti
—non tirare le somme,
non sarà un numero a dire la gioia,
un azzardo nel bianco.
L'addio improvviso come il freddo.Resta un patto senza abbreviazione
—la tua storia.
Un bordo dentro gli occhi.Solo nel taglio esatto
a volte riposo.
III.The smile covers the absence of visages
—don't come to conclusions,
joy will not be announced by a number,
a hazard in the whiteness.
The sudden goodbye like the cold.Your story
remains a pact without abbreviation.
A margin in the eyes.Only in the exact cut
do I sometimes rest.
