THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY

THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY
April 12, 2016

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #24: Antonio Blunda on Music

Antonio Blunda is an Italian poet, living in Palermo. We have begun a friendship, after we both participated in the 2011 event, 100,000 Poets for Change.

I know that Antonio loves coffee (he talks about it all the time on Facebook.) He is also a music aficionado. Although both play a role in his writing life, Antonio's habit for this series on writing is listening to music.

I get too distracted if I listen to music while I'm writing. I usually prefer quiet. The only exception is if I'm working on a period piece. Then, I find the music helps my mind-set.

I am very excited to share a poem of Antonio's in English and in the original Italian. The subject of Antonio's poem, the ocean, lends itself to musicality because of its natural rhythm and onomatopoeia.
Here's Antonio:

Hi, Laura. Very often the music -- I like all: new age, new classical, classical, jazz, fusion, etc. -- every kind of music opens the mind. Now, for example, I'm listening this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi_0wdXg4Y.

(That's the love theme to the science fiction movie Blade Runner. Great choice.)
I AM THE SEA
by Antonio Blunda


This night has followed me

like a stranger
a foreign spy

I put up a defensive distance


Frisian horses

walking suddenly faster
after crossing the city

All strangers

of a strange land,
strange houses whose insides I cannot read


the prospective dead and the lovers

on a sidewalk
like crushed walnuts

strange souls from hell

on a bus from purgatory
that got a hold inside me

on the sands

on the déjà vus

on the tent of the stars

and in every place anyway
(but have I ever been here?)

This night they were following me

like a dog of this earth

 
what do they clench to themselves?
 
Forgive me, I do not want to understand.

I am the sea

with my usual job

for sailors and guardians


I am the sea,

I am nothing but the sea.

 
A companion
of that pale

eye that is on me.

 
a Rachmaninov melancholy
cooling down
to the right side of dirty windows

a breath

without a strong noise

(Translation Ute Margaret Saine)

IO SONO IL MARE

Questa notte mi ha seguito
come una spia straniera

ho messo una distanza di difesa

cavalli di frisia
aumentando il passo
subito dopo una città

Tutti stranieri
d'una terra straniera,
case straniere che non leggo mai dentro

gli aspiranti morti e gli amanti
su un marciapiedi
sono noci schiacciate

anime d'inferno straniere
su un bus di purgatorio
che si tengono in me
sulla sabbia
sui dejavu
sul panno di stelle
e comunque da qualche parte
(ma io son già stato qui?)

Questa notte mi hanno inseguito
come un cane di questa terra

cosa stringono intorno?

Perdonatemi, io non voglio capire.

Io sono il mare
con il mio solito mestiere
per naviganti e guardiani

Io son il mare,
non sono altro che il mare.

Un compagno
di quell'occhio
pallido su di me

Io sono il mare
una malinconia di Rachmaninov
che si raffredda
sulla destra
dai finestrini sporchi

un respiro
senza rumori forti
 


Antonio Blunda was born in Erice and lives in Palermo, where he practices as a lawyer. Among his passions are literature, poetry, fiction, quantum physics, history, philosophy. Among his literary prizes are "Encyclopedia of the Italian Poets Emerging" 2002-2003 published by Publisher Aletti and first place in the 2004 "Prize for Peace" organized by the Culture and Society Studies Center of Turin. He blogs at: www.antonioblunda.com


1 comment:

Robyn Hood Black said...

Thank you, Laura, for this introduction to Signore Blunda and his writing! He sounds like a true Renaissance Man.

(And I'm more like you - I need quiet to write most of the time, but if it's something historical, I like a period "soundtrack.")