Paola Loreto

Paola Loreto was born in Bergamo (Italy). She teaches Anglo-American Literature in the University of Milan. She had published two books about the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, and she had translated poems of Philip Levine, Emily Dickinson, Paul Celan. Her first poems collection, L’acero rosso [The Red Maple] was published by Crocetti (Milan). More informations in http://www.paolaloreto.net
Paola Loreto is the author of three books of poetry, L’acero rosso (The Red Maple, Crocetti, Milan, 2002), Addio al decoro (A Farewell to Decorum, LietoColle, Como, 2006), and La memoria del corpo (The Body’s Memory, forthcoming in 2007 by Crocetti). She has published poems in literary journals and magazines, such as ClanDestino, Ciminiera, La Mosca di Milano, and La colpa di scrivere. Some of her poems are posted on the Fonoscaffale della Poesia Italiana http://www.wordtheque.com. Her awards include the Premio Tronto (2003), the Premio Benedetto Croce (2003), a residency at the Centre de Poésie & Traduction of the Royaumont Foundation in Paris, a Copeland Fellowship (Amherst College, MA). She was the curator of LucaniaPoesiaFestival (2005) and of Suoni e Voci dal Vulture (2006).
She was born in Bergamo (Italy), and is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Milan. As a scholar, she has published two books, one on Emily Dickinson and one on Robert Frost, and has written a number of articles and essays on North-American and Caribbean literatures. She has translated poems by Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Philip Levine and Amy Newman. She is currently working on a book-length study of Derek Walcott’s last book, Tiepolo’s Hound.
 

Riding the Unconscious

She’s looking out of the window
but she’s not seeing anything
that’s really out there.
What is she thinking of?
What kind of imagination
is taking her so far away,
so close as she is to us,
now, in this compartment?
A veil covers her cornea.
Eyelids stay put, forever still.
A whole world. Her life.
Something sweet, that makes her smile.
Whatever it is, it must feel really good.
I envy her the place she’s in right now.
I wouldn’t bring her back to her seat
in the train for any reason I can see.
There are things one should be able to share
(that one can not), like this film envelopping
a woman sitting in front of me
on my way back home—a membrane
I don’t want to tear, although
she’s drawing me in.


Exstatic monologue

I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
You see the risk you take of falling off
the crest, and lose your balance on a foot
that doesn’t rest on rock but slips uncertain.
You needn’t rush unless you’re very near the top.
Take breath. Look up. Relax and concentrate
on where you want to go next. The way you choose
you’ll feel by taking in the whole extension
at a sight. One vision, one step. Don’t move:
wait there until your heart beats evenly
again, at least as slow as to avoid
the boiling over of your blood. Why so?
Because the body tells the path, the pulse
and the approach. The higher it ascends
the lighter it becomes, but yes, there’s nothing
heavier than the start. One never knows
the reason why she leaves, for one thing.
The times I have regretted leaving home
I cannot count, but then I knew I would be safe
and safer for the journey. The going is
the time you fill with your fatigue and faith.
The getting there is your reward, and one
that cannot end. You learn yourself. You know
when doubt is death and when it’s life, don’t you?
And then, it is as if a force were pulling you,
or bearing you uphill. You want to yield to
a desire and meet its source on high, where
nothing left there is for you to aspire to.
Inspire. The shaping power is the touch
of earth and flesh progressing in a dance
of thighs and shins that sigh and sing
at viewing things so close and clear,
the outline of a mount is joy enough
to go for days. You stay. I won’t stop here.

Among the Living

When Luca died, you say.
You know, I can’t remember when it was exactly.
It surely was a year ago, no doubt a summer ago,
but I’m not positive about the day, and didn’t think
he could have even mentioned it.
I’d never thought he could have done that
because one never names a son he’s lost.
He does not enter this life of jars
of honey that migrate from one threshold
to the other of the Tezzi. I have smiled to you
and come near you to pass you
two chilos of this raw and yellow substance
Mr and Mrs Santini gave me to give
you. I don’t want to get into your world
of ghosts who live and cheer 
the room up from a frame. I adore
the woods and their creatures, and the folly
that you say suits me. No faith can be sufficient
when you hear the steps of someone
walking ahead of you, who turns and points
out the way. I want to go ahead.
I want to forget. There’s no other way
of loving, really, of remembering.
The niche on the corner
of the path, we’ll let you build it, but
you won’t see me at the memorial
service. I’m tired of you
and of your sorrow. I’m tired
of lying. You say there’s only one thing
you’d like to know? That’s right: when
did my sister die—can you remember?