'That Wandering in the Darkness of Courtyards': AConversation on Poetry and the Art of Translation with Milo deAngelis and Susan Stewart.
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Speakers): Milo De Angelis and Susan Stewart
Milo De Angelis
Milo De Angelis made his debut as a poet in 1976 with Somiglianze. Since then he has published six books of poetry. Tema dell’addio won the Premio Viareggio in 2008. A collection of his poetry appeared in 2008. His latest book was published in the fall of 2010 and is titled Quell’andarsene nel buio dei cortili. He is also the author of the short story La corsa dei mantelli (1979) and a collection of essays titled Poesia e destino (1982).
He has also translated poetry from the French and the Greek classics. An English translation of his poems by Emanuel di Pasquale came out in 2003 with the title Between the Blast Furnaces and the Dizziness. A Selection of Poems: 1970-1999.
De Angelis lives in Milan, where he teaches in a prison.
His poetic reflections center on the liminal space where the ephemeral presence of life meets with the tragic intimation of mortality. A sense of void and silence seems to envelop his longing for communication with the dead, who, in his words, ‘non cessano di non parlare’ (‘do not cease to not talk’).
Susan Stewart
Susan Stewart is an award-winning poet, critic, translator and professor of poetry, aesthetics and philosophy of literature at Princeton. Her latest books of poetry are Red Rover and Columbarium, which won the National Book Critic Circle Award in 2003. Her latest, award-winning book of criticism is Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.
My Songs for Adam, a song cycle on which she collaborated with composer James Primosh, premiered in the fall of 2009 with the Chicago Symphony and was later broadcast on various radio stations throughout the country. Her translations of Alda Merini’s love poems have been published in 2009 under the title Love Lessons for ‘Facing Pages,’ a series of poetry translations edited by our own Nicholas Jenkins.
She is the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
She is currently working on a translation of Milo De Angelis’ poetry.