"Mariani has emerged as one of the few significant post-Montalian poets in Italy, and Molino is a graceful, experienced, thoroughly reliable translator. The result is an elegant book, an important book, bringing a distinctive voice into English."-Rosanna Warren
Culled from his entire career, the poems in Traces of Time cover numerous themes, most prominently the poet's relationship to history and how poetry can exist outside of it. "Tiananmen, 20 Years Later," "Protocols of War," and "Checkmate" (about 9/11) all illustrate Lucio Mariani's concerns "through images both dense and porous, lines both cadenced and spasmodic," and confirm his place in contemporary poetry.
"Protocols of War"
(Baghdad is not far)
Of this time you'll gather no memories
for your eternal hunger.
Can't you see the slags in the weave
that enfolds the flesh of the living?
Can't you see that the boxes and drawers
where the silver of bygone days abounds
have no room for trinkets or seashells
of a present founded on plaster markets,
lost facing a mirror
seeking itself in the halls of the world?
Don't you see that for the first time
every man erects ruins for his heirs
enacting inane protocols of war
while the future slams its shutters tight
so as to celebrate on statistical altars
the glory of mindless marionettes
maneuvered by nothingness,
sprung in the bitter fields of oblivion?
Of this time you'll gather no memories.
Lucio Mariani is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Echoes of Memory (available in English from UPNE), as well as a volume of essays, a collection of short stories, and translations of works by Cesar Vallejo, Tristan Corbiere, and Yves Bonnefoy.
Anthony Molino is a translator from the Italian, an anthropologist, and a psychoanalyst. In addition to Lucio Mariani's two volumes, he has also translated works by Valerio Magrelli and Antonio Porta, among others.
Table of Contents:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Contest (Agone)
2. You’ll Say (Mi dirai)
3. Where (Dove)
4. Love Sometimes (L’Amore talvolta)
5. The Other (L’altro)
6. Eternity (L’Eternità)
7. Y entonces (Y entonces)
8. Letter (Lettera)
9. Try (Prova)
10. The Only Dead (Gli unici morti)
11. Coincidences (Coincidenze)
12. In the Grass (Sul prato)
13. On the Tongue (Sulla lingua)
14. Whims of Water (Giochi d’acqua)
15. Ephesus (Efeso)
16. Crèche (Presepe)
17. The Slightest of Winds (Basta il più tenue vento)
18. Hyperbole (Iperbole)
19. It’s Necessary (E’ necessario)
20. The Envy of the Gods (L’Invidia degli dei)
21. De Moraes (De Moraes)
22. Lethe (Lethe)
23. Sicily in June (Giugno di Sicilia)
24. The Prophet’s Precept (Precetto del profeta)
25. Question (Quesito)
26. Desert (Deserto)
27. Botched Plans (Eterogenesi dei fini)
28. Talking to Themselves (Parlano con se stessi)
29. Of Time (Del tempo)
30. So Says the Merchant (Dice il mercante)
31. Piazza Navona (Piazza Navona)
32. L’esprit de la loi (L’esprit de la loi)
33. The Moral Issue (La questione morale)
34. The Bollard (La bitta)
35. Checkmate (Scacco matto)
36. New Myths (Nuovi miti)
37. Protocols of War (Protocolli di guerra)
38. The Moon and the Wave (La luna e l’onda)
39. The Short-Lived Butterfly (La farfalla breve)
40. Like the Daisies (Come le margherite)
41. My Birth (Io nacqui)
42. Oration (Oratorio)
43. Operation Medici (“Operazione famiglia Medici”)
44. The Gesture (Il gesto)
45. A New Freedom (Con nessuno)
46. Scapegoat of Silence (Il capro del silenzio)
47. The Knaves of Commerce (I fanti del commercio)
48. What Barbarians (Quali barbari)
49. Guests (Ospiti)
50. Letter Never Sent (Lettera mai spedita)
51. To a Translator (A un traduttore)
52. Against All Daggers (Contro i pugnali)
53. A Frequent Question (Ripetuta domanda)
54. To a Friend (A un amico)
55. Curtain Call (Al levar del sipario)
56. Ineptia (Ineptia)
57. Identities in Transit (Identità in transito)
58. Tiananmen, 20 Years Later (Nel ventennio di Piazza Tienanmen)
59. Pietas (Pietas)
60. Lady (Domina)
