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« indietro
Semicerchio XXXVII (2007/02) La forma chiusa. Poesia dal carcere. pp. 69-70
Poesie tradotte da Antonella Anedda
Peter Levy, who died aged 57 in March 2007, was a much-loved teacher of English at the Faculty of Letters (Arezzo) of Siena University. He was in charge of the English section of Semicerchio, for which he wrote poetry reviews and articles. He began writing poetry himself while an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. His early work was influenced in particular by W. B.Yeats,W. H.Auden, and Louis MacNeice. After he came to live in the Casentino valley near Arezzo in 1978, Peter’s poetry took on a more personal, idiosyncratic voice, transforming apparently insignificant encounters with local people and places into moments of intense perception and emotion—though controlled, always, by a gentle playfulness and self-irony. The poems published here are from the darker years following the premature death of his brother, the philosopher David Levy, to whom he was deeply attached. They show him, after a long silence, beginning to find words for mourning and reasons for a return to living. Six months before his own death, as if foreseeing it, he gathered together poems written over almost 40 years in a volume entitled The Benefit of the Doubt (2006). The Faculty of Letters and Peter’s family have endowed a poetry prize in his name for the students of the faculty.
William Dodd
Translations by ANTONELLA ANEDDA from The Benefit of the Doubt. Poems1967-2006, Private publication 2007
MARS
‘Earth’s the right place for love…’, Frost wrote. Mars isn’t. Multiple screens give us the thrill, once again, of a new-found-land, which Earth feels, but Mars doesn’t. Mars has discovered nothing… I might be there, any language I use to write this, impossible, or lost. I might be there, unaware of a planet’s rightness for love. Rock-dead. As now.
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MARTE
Ha scritto Frost che la Terra è il posto giusto per l’amore. Marte no. Mille schermi ci danno ancora di un pianeta-inesplorato il brivido – che la Terra ma non Marte prova. Marte non ha scoperto nulla…Potrei essere là qualunque lingua usassi sarebbe impossibile o perduta. Potrei essere là, ignaro di una terra giusta per l’amore. Sasso morto. Come ora.
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PROSE POEM
It wasn’t simply the conventionally beautiful that [withdrew: everything was herded indiscriminately into emptiness… which meant that when astonishingly it all came [crowding back, the dullest phenomenon glowed with the rest, stood there with them in a single circle, a ring of light. Those crowds [returning, hand in hand, from the brink of extinction now resonate, [for the time being or for ever, beyond what I had come to hope.
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POESIA IN PROSA
Non era solo la bellezza usuale a ritrarsi: ogni cosa fu spinta come un gregge nel vuoto… Così quando a sorpresa tutto si affollò all’indietro il più spento fenomeno risplendeva con gli altri. Restava là con loro in un unico cerchio – un anello di luce. La folla [che tornava mano nella mano da un orlo di estinzione adesso risuona [per ora o per sempre, più di quanto ero giunto a sperare.
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AUBADE
Just left of my desk I have two Hopper postcards: Night Hawks – around five in the morning, a dowtown bar, three customers, two men in fedoras, a woman in evening dress (red hair, red dress), the [barman serving penultimate drinks; and another whose title escapes me – around five in the morning, a prairie [highway, a filling station, red pumps, the attendant, just risen, attending to them. I’ve framed them together: Night Hawks on top, the other below it, as if they were happening at the same time, same morning, down and out of town respectively: four night owls and one early riser; and now, to complete the triptych, imagine a third [picture: the main square here around five in the morning and me walking across it towards this room half an hour or so before getting these words down.
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AUBADE
A sinistra sulla scrivania ho due cartoline di Hopper. La prima Nottambuli – le cinque del mattino circa, un bar del centro, tre clienti, due uomini in cappello, una donna (capelli rossi) in abito da sera (rosso), il [barman che versa ancora un drink. L’altra il cui titolo mi sfugge – le cinque del mattino circa, una strada nella [prateria una stazione di servizio, tre pompe rosse, il benzinaio appena alzato che serve. Le ho incorniciate insieme: Nottambuli in alto, l’altra sotto, come se stessero accadendo nella stessa mattina e alla stessa ora, in città e fuori rispettivamente: quattro tira-tardi e un mattiniero. Ora a completare il trittico pensa un terzo quadro: la piazza del paese qui – le cinque del mattino circa io che l’attraverso e arrivo in questa stanza – mezz’ora prima circa – di buttare giù queste parole.
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IN AND OUT
What I bring to the river is predictable: a habitual tension, a muscular inflexibility which makes the descent hard going, the rocks I negotiate resistant, though I’m the resister. When I get there I undress meticulously, removing shoes, clothes, glasses, watch in a well-rehearsed order, positioning them unnecessarily, checking and double-checking. Those possessions are as yet impossibly heavy. I dive into the river and almost immediately am mutable, liquid – my periodic ‘wonderful’ acquires new music, its l is complicit with the water which dissolves solidity; and when I emerge ten minutes later, I’m different: I dress leisurely, unanxiously, my shoes, watch, glasses have acquired a talismanic quality, my hair has borrowed its whiteness from the waterfall, or from that heron which appeared unexpectedly the other evening, hovered a moment, balancing lightly over the water, then continued downstream into the distance, its flight as liquid as the river, as I murmured ‘wonderful’, then made my way up to the road again, effortlessly this time.
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DENTRO E FUORI
Quello che porto al fiume è prevedibile: una tensione usuale, una muscolatura rigida che rende la discesa faticosa, le rocce che scavalco resistenti benché sia io a resistere. Quando arrivo mi spoglio con cura, tolgo scarpe, vestiti, occhiali, orologio, li dispongo inutilmente in ordine perfetto, controllando due volte, tanto pesanti sono per il momento queste cose. Mi tuffo e quasi subito sono liquido, mutevole, il mio ripetere “bello” acquista nuovo suono, la sua “elle” complice dell’acqua che dissolve il solido. Quando riemergo dieci minuti dopo sono diverso, mi rivesto con comodo, senz’ansia: scarpe, orologio, occhiali hanno la qualità dei talismani i miei capelli hanno rubato il bianco alla cascata o a quell’airone che apparve inaspettato l’altra sera, librandosi un istante – in bilico sull’acqua – per poi seguire a valle la corrente, il volo liquido come il fiume, mentre mormoravo “bello” e riprendevo di nuovo la mia strada, stavolta senza sforzo.
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