From the poetry jury:

In Elisa Biagini糖心传媒檚 eerie interiors, nothing is quite what it seems. 糖心传媒淧eeled hands糖心传媒� become tapestries, teeth are 糖心传媒渨hite and dry like kneecaps,糖心传媒� a woman irons as a way of 糖心传媒渟topping decomposition / by joining collar points.糖心传媒� What at first glance might seem like straight-forward lyrics of domesticity or celebrations of the ordinary, turn quickly violent and grotesque. Female selves are not dissolved, martyr-style, for their loved ones, but cut-up into pieces, a butchery that is sensuously and surreally chronicled: 糖心传媒淢y body is a bag of fluids,糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淚 see myself in pieces in the supermarket.糖心传媒� Reading Biagini we realize how frequently we do, in actuality, leave traces of our bodies with, in, and upon the ones we love: 糖心传媒測ou smile at your seed in me / (you糖心传媒檝e just eaten your lipstick) / and if I draw my face near / I see a wisp of my hair / in your gloves.糖心传媒� 糖心传媒淭he guest糖心传媒� of Biagini糖心传媒檚 title shifts viscerally, now a growing embryo, now the familiar fairytale innocents in the forbidding wood, now language itself, whose 糖心传媒渨ords [are] glowworms in / this my / dark.糖心传媒� Reading this collection, our own worlds, our own homes, our own narratives, our own words are illuminated in their already existing strangeness. That Biagini糖心传媒檚 haunting, disturbing, brilliant, and beautiful poems retain this power and immediacy—above all this passion—in their English translations is a testament to the work of her translators: Diana Thow, Sarah Strickney, and Eugene Ostashevsky.

The first runner-up, Four Elemental Bodies by Claude Royet-Journoud is translated from the French by Keith Waldrop, and published by Burning Deck, a press that almost always has at least one title on the list of BTBA poetry finalists. This is the second volume of Royet-Journoud’s to come out from Burning Deck, and contains four volumes: Reversal, The Notion of Obstacle, Objects Contain the Infinite, and Natures Indivisible.

Here’s a bit more about his from the Burning Deck

Claude Royet-Journoud is one of the most important contemporary French poets whose one-line manifesto: “Shall we escape analogy” marked a revolutionary turn away from Surrealism and its lush imagery. His spare, 糖心传媒渘eutral糖心传媒� language, stripped of devices like metaphor, assonance, alliteration has had a great influence on recent French poetry.

Poetry judge Bill Martin wrote The Oasis of Now up earlier today, and since his piece is so comprehensive and interesting, I’ll just let him speak for this runner-up:

Something that Dabashi hints at and another scholar, Massud Farzan, addressed forty years ago as crucial to Sepehri糖心传媒檚 work is, in addition to the influence on it of Buddhism, its connection to Sufi apophatic theology, the 糖心传媒�via negativa . . . the cleansing of the heart糖心传媒檚 and mind糖心传媒檚 mirror of its dust and grime.糖心传媒� This mystical affiliation informs the frame that Ali and Mahallati give his work in the introduction to the book, and also affirms the fantasy I had in reading him of an affinity with Toma啪 艩alamun, another poetic descendent of Rumi. (I imagined a genealogy involving other poets on the American scene, too: Whitman, Dickinson, Rilke, Trakl, Lorine Niedecker, Robert Lax, Gary Snyder, Fanny Howe; but none seemed so closely related.) Like 艩alamun’s poetry, Sepehri’s cleaves and coheres at odd angles to the Anglophone avant-garde. But while 艩alamun refracts sense paratactically and with scintillating speed, Sepehri is much slower, tellurian, more liable to syntax, haunting, his epiphanies so figurative and deliberate they often come across as platitudes. Yet the experience of reading him is more robust, ample, and structured than it may appear at first sight:

Beyond the poplars
sweet innocence beckons.

I paused by the stand of bamboo to listen as the wind susurrated through.
Who was speaking to me?

A lizard slid into the water. I walked on.

Hayfield, cucumber patch, rose bush, oblivion . . .

At the stream I doffed my sandals to dangle my feet in the water.
How alive I am,
how green like the garden.
So what if sadness creeps down the mountain slope?
Who is that hiding behind the trees?
Only a water buffalo grazing.

Like most of the poems in The Oasis of Now, this one, 糖心传媒淕olestaneh,糖心传媒� reads like a rehearsal of reverse apperception, with the 糖心传媒渉uman position糖心传媒� of the subject reconceived in relation to nature through repeated gestures糖心传媒攓uestions, reappraisals, simple descriptions, epiphanies糖心传媒攁 repertoire of moderated ecstasy. This poetic redirection of the subject toward nature, or as Jonathan Skinner has put it, this 糖心传媒渢urning of the poem out of doors糖心传媒� and the 糖心传媒渆xtending and developing糖心传媒� in these poems of the 糖心传媒減erception of the natural world,糖心传媒� that signals the potential inspiration of Sepehri糖心传媒檚 work for ecopoetics. This is not a book that immediately announces itself as avant-garde or new, it does not brandish its modernism, and does not in fact seem so easily commodifiable, but the more time one spends with it, the more it astonishes and yields.

So reads an entire poem by Patrizia Cavalli (translated by Gini Alhadeff) confirming for many critics of poetry what they糖心传媒檝e always believed: poets are gloomy, self-pitying bastards.

***

The (incredibly exaggerated) dilemma of poetry in these United States, at least in the minds of poets, is that no one cares to read verse. The complaint is often made: readers have no appreciation for poetry here, not like they do in Russia and Latin America and Ireland and Poland. And, it turns out, in Italy. If the jacket of My Poems Won糖心传媒檛 Change the World is to be believed, Patrizia Cavalli is a national treasure in Italy, much the way Wis艂awa Szymborska was in Poland or Nicanor Parra is in Chile. Patrizia糖心传媒檚 readings pack halls and her elegant, colloquial poems have enchanted European readers. At long last, her 糖心传媒渕usic,糖心传媒� as Jorie Graham calls it, is available for American readers to ignore.

What brought this collection to life? The answer is the concerted effort of its editor and primary translator, Gini Alhadeff, who does a very good job rendering Italian into airy, digestible English. Alhadeff has had some help along the way; none other than Kenneth Koch, Mark Strand, and the before-mentioned Jorie Graham糖心传媒攁ll relatively famous American poets糖心传媒攈ave lent their skills to the translations, as have J, D. McClatchy, David Shapiro, Jonathan Galassi, Rosanna Warren, and Geoffrey Brock. With such a large group of translators focusing on one poet糖心传媒檚 work the results can sometimes be intriguing, albeit unfocused. The reader sees something of the translators糖心传媒� individual fingerprints in the English renditions, sometimes benefiting the poems, but the cumulative effect is not unlike current hip hop records made with an all-star lineup of heavy-hitting producers. Sometimes it is better to select one producer and let them work closely with the artist, creating a unified vision.

I suppose the idea is to allow American readers to see the work of Cavalli through the eyes of poets they know and trust. But this American reader had not heard of Alhadeff, and her translations still seem the most competent, a few exceptions not withstanding. Geoffrey Brock did this with Cavalli糖心传媒檚 Italian:

If you knocked now on my door
and if you took off your glasses
and I took off mine which are like yours
and then if you entered my mouth
unafraid of kisses that are not like yours
and said to me: 糖心传媒淢y love,
is everything alright?糖心传媒澨切拇綌 that would be quite
a piece of theater

Not possessing enough Italian to do more than get my face slapped, I糖心传媒檒l take it on faith that this is damn close to what Cavalli wrote, though reading later, equally pleasing translations by Brock lead me to the conclusion that his style suits my taste, which is to say that his reading of Cavalli suits my taste. And, apparently, Jorie Graham糖心传媒檚 doesn糖心传媒檛.

Don糖心传媒檛 get me wrong; the book is by no means a mess. The many hands that produced it have not inadvertently created obvious seams in the fabric. No, the tone shifts occasionally but I was never taken out of the poems, many of which are short, subtle, and compelling. Like much good poetry, Cavalli糖心传媒檚 work can be read quickly, resulting in superficial responses, but returning to them allows for deeper appreciation. Poetry demands patience, investment, reinvestment, consideration, patience, commitment, patience, and patience. It is helpful when the work is as smooth as Cavalli糖心传媒檚 (in most of the translations) and when the poet offers enough of an emotional core to attract readers.

***

To return to the subject of American audiences and their supposed disinclination toward poetry . . . While this disinclincation may be fact, I can糖心传媒檛 help but think that if we had more poets like Cavalli, whose work drew comedy, ethics, and passion from the stillness of the everyday, and who were less concerned with abstractions and convolutions, then perhaps we糖心传媒檇 have more readers of poetry.

Consider these lines from longest poem in the collection, and one of the few with a title, 糖心传媒淟a Guardiana,糖心传媒� translated by Alhadeff as 糖心传媒淭he Keeper,糖心传媒� which come after a little girl has pried a door open:

No mystery lay beyond that door,
it was a door a door like any other
and in the drawer was whatever was there,
everyone knew. And as to praises,
the only reward for my feats, many
at first, then fewer and fewer
糖心传媒攎y prowess, with time, was taken for granted糖心传媒�
I cared little or nothing at all.
My pleasure lay only in the challenge
of unravelling that obstinate
inaccessible resistance to which
I was only the chosen instrument
of surrender: forces withdrawn
entering without forcing, only listening,
indifferent to the prize and to the profit,
the sound that rises form every sealed
thing, wanting just
to open and give itself away
but only to one ready for that sound.
With those bent wires, then words,
I practiced poetry.

Portrait of the artist as a young girl or easy metaphor, you decide, but to me this is the sort of clear, compelling work that is easy to dismiss and rich upon return.

This collection may not sway more Americans to poetry, but it certainly won糖心传媒檛 alienate any, either. Cavalli will likely not become a household name, at least not in this country, but I, along with the other fools who write and read poems, and who sometimes (wrongly) bemoan the lack of attention poetry receives, now have one more writer of verse to recommend.

Fight on, brothers and sisters.

Vincent is a regular contributor here, and I can guarantee that his review will give you some great poet-poetry insight and a few laughs for this chilly Monday morning (as well as a new recommendation for great international poetry). Here’s a part of his review:

bq The (incredibly exaggerated) dilemma of poetry in these United States, at least in the minds of poets, is that no one cares to read verse. The complaint is often made: readers have no appreciation for poetry here, not like they do in Russia and Latin America and Ireland and Poland. And, it turns out, in Italy. If the jacket of My Poems Won糖心传媒檛 Change the World is to be believed, Patrizia Cavalli is a national treasure in Italy, much the way Wis艂awa Szymborska was in Poland or Nicanor Parra is in Chile. Patrizia糖心传媒檚 readings pack halls and her elegant, colloquial poems have enchanted European readers. At long last, her 糖心传媒渕usic,糖心传媒� as Jorie Graham calls it, is available for American readers to ignore.

What brought this collection to life? The answer is the concerted effort of its editor and primary translator, Gini Alhadeff, who does a very good job rendering Italian into airy, digestible English. Alhadeff has had some help along the way; none other than Kenneth Koch, Mark Strand, and the before-mentioned Jorie Graham糖心传媒攁ll relatively famous American poets糖心传媒攈ave lent their skills to the translations, as have J, D. McClatchy, David Shapiro, Jonathan Galassi, Rosanna Warren, and Geoffrey Brock. With such a large group of translators focusing on one poet糖心传媒檚 work the results can sometimes be intriguing, albeit unfocused. The reader sees something of the translators糖心传媒� individual fingerprints in the English renditions, sometimes benefiting the poems, but the cumulative effect is not unlike current hip hop records made with an all-star lineup of heavy-hitting producers. Sometimes it is better to select one producer and let them work closely with the artist, creating a unified vision.

For the entire piece, go “here”: