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Pondering the Weight of Being: Selected Poems (1944-2013)
Guernica Editions, Spring 2015
170 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781771830263
ISBN10: 1771830263
English, Italian
Translated from the Italian
$20.00 Canada, $20.00 US
Read more from the Essential Translations Series
Critics include Orelli among the so-called post-hermetic poets, aligning him with one of Italy's most distinctive literary schools: the Linea Lombarda. Orelli's poetry, however, eludes pigeonholing. The phonosymbolism enveloping his verse, combined with sharpness of observation, elegance of diction, and irony of tone, make his poetry distinctive and exacting. Readers, scholars and translators are enticed and challenged at every word. This anthology -- the first in English -- charts Orelli's poetic journey from his debut collection in 1944 to the last poems written shortly before his death. Selected and introduced by Orelli's foremost scholar, Pietro De Marchi, and translated and annotated by two award-winning translators, Marco Sonzogni and Ross Woods, Pondering the Weight of Being brings to English-speaking readers a major poet.
Hanging by a thread of drool / unconsciously supported by a branch / snails not yet fully / consubstantiated / into nothing swaying / we test our virtue.
Giorgio Orelli was undoubtedly the most important modern Swiss poet writing in Italian, his work representing one of those crossing-borders artistic oeuvres that so fascinate us today. Although included by a noted critic in the Linea Lombarda group of poets along with Luciano Erba and others, whose affectionate regard for the everyday is lined with irony, Orelli’s style remains distinctive, in part due to his sophisticated linguistic skills and love of local dialects. Many poems have a civic, reconciling ring; others are highly personal. I began translating him in the late 1950’s and returned decades later to find joy once more in deciphering his erudite riddles and transposing rhythms that can be as ingenuous as an au-pied-de-la-montagne bicycle tour.
Lynne Lawner
There is no doubt about it: Orelli has learned above all from Dante, the greatest craftsman of our mother tongue, how to capture in just a few memorable syllables the most elevated literature and the most humble and domestic vision of daily life. Thus even a simple adjective, like funny, is enough to encapsulate the whole experience of life, to allow us to ponder the weight of being.
Pietro De Marchi
As a major poet, Orelli is a master wordsmith – carefully and skilfully moulding language to his thematic, stylistic and moral intentions.
Marco Sonzogni & Ross Woods
Books by Giorgio Orelli
Books by Marco Sonzogni
Books by Ross Woods
