{"id":199,"date":"2009-11-06T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-06T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=199"},"modified":"2017-02-13T11:43:25","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T10:43:25","slug":"omaggio-ad-alda-merini-poetessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/omaggio-ad-alda-merini-poetessa\/","title":{"rendered":"Omaggio ad Alda Merini, poetessa"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday 31st October I\u00a0heard the sad news\u00a0that la poetessa <\/strong>(the female poet) Alda Merini<\/strong> had died from cancer, aged 78. I only discovered her poems a couple of years ago, and I was immediately taken by\u00a0their delicate sensitivity. Through her poetry, Merini\u00a0describes her inner torment, longing for love, and mysticism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alda Merini was born in Milano on\u00a0the 21st of March 1931. She started writing poetry at an early age, and when she was\u00a019\u00a0two of her poems were included in the\u00a0Antologia della poesia italiana 1909-1949<\/strong> (Anthology of Italian Poetry 1909-1949) edited by Spagnoletti. Alda Merini published the first of several books of her verses in 1953, however\u00a0in 1961 she was taken into psychiatric care due to mental health problems\u00a0and did not publish any more work for over 20 years. Finally in 1984 she published\u00a0La Terra Santa<\/strong>, in which she describes her experience of being\u00a0in the psychiatric hospital,\u00a0and frequent references to this experience\u00a0reappear in her later work. Despite being a troubled soul, Alda Merini never lost her sense of irony and irreverent wit, and in 2004,\u00a0for the occasion of\u00a0her seventy-third birthday, <\/span>she asked for a \u201chot man\u201d.\u00a0Her friends duly organized a visit from the male stripper Ghibly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Merini\u00a0won many Italian literary\u00a0awards and was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, firstly by the Acad\u00e9mie Francaise in 1996, and then\u00a0in 2001 by P.E.N. Italia. <\/span>A selection of her works\u00a0have been\u00a0translated into English by the American poet Susan Stewart in \u201cLove Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini<\/em>\u201d, published earlier this year by Princeton University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve chosen a self-portrait poem to share with you\u00a0entitled Alda Merini<\/strong> taken from the collection Vuoto d\u2019amore <\/strong>(Void of Love), published in 1991. Here it is below\u00a0with my own translation into English.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alda Merini<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Amai teneramente dei dolcissimi amanti<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

senza che essi sapessero mai nulla.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

E su questi intessei tele di ragno<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

e fui preda della mia stessa materia.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In me l\u2019anima c\u2019era della meretrice<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

della santa della sanguinaria e dell\u2019ipocrita.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Molti diedero al mio modo di vivere un nome<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

e fui soltanto un\u2019isterica.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I tenderly loved some very\u00a0sweet lovers \/ without them ever knowing anything. \/ And over them I weaved spider\u2019s webs \/ and I was prey\u00a0to my own material. \/ In me there was the soul of the prostitute \/ of the saint of the bloodthirsty and of the hypocrite. \/ Many gave a name to my way of living \/ and I was simply a hysterical person.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grazie Alda!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday 31st October I\u00a0heard the sad news\u00a0that la poetessa (the female poet) Alda Merini had died from cancer, aged 78. I only discovered her poems a couple of years ago, and I was immediately taken by\u00a0their delicate sensitivity. Through her poetry, Merini\u00a0describes her inner torment, longing for love, and mysticism. Alda Merini was born…<\/p>\n

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