Read Online Traces Of Time: New And Selected Poems Drafted By Lucio Mariani Formatted As Paperback

an occasional reader of poetry and an even more occasional writer on my blog about such, Generally it is because, for myself, a volume of poems are not consumed from beginning to end, making a “review” simple, other reasons include the very limited number of “views” my poetry posts attract, the limited formal study of poetry I have undertaken and the sheer volume of translated fiction that I have sitting awaiting my attention.


However, as I was recently feeling a little bogged down with my fiction pursuits, a timely volume of poetry from the Open Letter International Poetry Series landed on my doorstep.
It was time for a refresh and a change of pace, Lucio Marianis “Traces Of Time” translated by Anthony Molina, was the perfect antidote to literary boredom,

This new publication contains sixty poems, all presented in the original Italian alongside the English translation, The book also has a Preface, by Rosanna Warren, which explains that these poems span nearly forty years of Marians work and are taken from the larger Farfalla e segno: Poesie, a “translators Note” and a wonderful

essay by Mariani himself, titled “Concerning the diffusion and recreation of Poetry: In praise of the lesser players”.
The purchase price of this collection is worth it simply for the closing essay, a joyous celebration on translators and readers of poetry:

My interest, instead, is to emphasize the role of two minor contributors to the widespread diffusion of the poiein: the translator and the public reader.
To these figures goes the credit for enabling the poetic work to travel through space and time, Indeed, they deserve to be acknowledged in the way that the history of economics honors the first wayfarer merchants, whose caravans moved artefacts, goods, and food from one land to another, fostering trade and contributing to the spread of knowledge and civilization among different peoples and cultures.
Translator and reader, however, deserve more that the merchant of old because, in the practice of a trade no less taxing, they overcome even barriers of time, in anticipation of little or no reward for so obstinately scattering proof of the only art whose existence is questioned in our time.


For my full review go to sitelink blogspot. com. au/
This book was featured in the Nota Benes section of the November/Decemberissue of World Literature Today Magazine,

sitelink worldliteraturetoday. org/
Slowly
the dawn persevered
in its ubiquitous advent, becalmed light
of a mute explosion,
At first, remote glare
of an arrow returned to the sky
from lands beyond the sea
then, cosmic cold, fiber
of the general revelation
finally
the inexorable flow of forms
trees rocks flowers
heartstruck
at the brink of existence.

Origins of a motionless world
not meant for our eyes
unthought
at the curtain call
of each and every possible
life story.

"Mariani has emerged as one of the few significant postMontalian poets in Italy, and Molino is a graceful, experienced, thoroughly reliable translator, The result is an elegant book, an important book, bringing a distinctive voice into English, "Rosanna Warren

Culled from his entire career, the poems in Traces of Time cover numerous themes, most prominently the poet's relationship to history and how poetry can exist outside of it.
"Tiananmen,Years Later," "Protocols of War," and "Checkmate" about/all illustrate Lucio Mariani's concerns "through images both dense and porous, lines both cadenced and spasmodic," and confirm his place in contemporary poetry.


"Protocols of War"
Baghdad is not far

Of this time you'll gather no memories
for your eternal hunger.

Can't you see the slags in the weave
that enfolds the flesh of the living
Can't you see that the boxes and drawers
where the silver of bygone days abounds
have no room for trinkets or seashells
of a present founded on plaster markets,
lost facing a mirror
seeking itself in the halls of the world
Don't you see that for the first time
every man erects ruins for his heirs
enacting inane protocols of war
while the future slams its shutters tight
so as to celebrate on statistical altars
the glory of mindless marionettes
maneuvered by nothingness,
sprung in the bitter fields of oblivion
Of this time you'll gather no memories.


Lucio Mariani is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including Echoes of Memory available in English from UPNE, as well as a volume of essays, a collection of short stories, and translations of works by César Vallejo, Tristan Corbière, and Yves Bonnefoy.


Anthony Molino is a translator from the Italian, an anthropologist, and a psychoanalyst, In addition to Lucio Mariani's two volumes, he has also translated works by Valerio Magrelli and Antonio Porta, among others, .