Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini

by Alda Merini, Susan Stewart (Translator)

Alda Merini is one of Italy's most important, and most beloved, living poets. She has won many of the major national literary prizes and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Prize--by the French Academy in 1996 and by Italian PEN in 2001. In "Love Lessons," the distinguished American poet Susan Stewart brings us the largest and most comprehensive selection of Merini's poetry to appear in English. Complete with the original Italian on facing pages, a critical introduction, and explanatory notes, this collection gathers lyrics, meditations, and aphorisms that span fifty years, from Merini's first books of the 1950s to an unpublished poem from 2001. These accessible and moving poems reflect the experiences of a writer who, after beginning her career at the center of Italian Modernist circles when she was a teenager, went silent in her twenties, spending much of the next two decades in mental hospitals, only to reemerge in the 1970s to a full renewal of her gifts, an outpouring of new work, and great renown.

Whether she is working in the briefest, most incisive lyric mode or the complex time schemes of longer meditations, Merini's deep knowledge of classical and Christian myth gives her work a universal, philosophical resonance, revealing what is at heart her tragic sense of life. At the same time, her ironic wit, delight in nature, and affection for her native Milan underlie even her most harrowing poems of suffering. In Stewart's skillful translations readers will discover a true sibyl of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Genres: Poetry, Italian Literature, Italy

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 9, 2009

About the author

Alda Merini was a renowned Italian writer and poetess. The President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, called her an "inspired and limpid poetic voice".

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were times when my confused
memory was wandering from sigh to sigh
from mourning to mourning
and life struggled to emerge from sleep like
a black mote of death and everything was
carried forward by a divine knowledge
that was slipping away and vanishing from my own hands.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

DAY 19 of The Sealey Challenge

Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini, translated from Italian by Susan Stewart - Italy

° Poetry Themes: Sinner /Saint + Sacred / Profane imagery and exploration, love poems, aphorisms

[Jee Koh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Lessons is a selection of poems by living Italian poet Alda Merini, translated by Susan Stewart. Merini's treatment of love is both intensely erotic and metaphysical. In fact, it does not distinguish between the body and the mind. There is no ironic posturing here, only passionate involvement. Despite the asymmetries of love--love unrequited, unequal, betrayed--the poems give the impression that Merini cannot help giving herself to it. Borne on her surging emotion, the reader is thrown, with her, against the intransigency of male lust. "Roman Wedding" concludes with this ominous, yet exhilarating, image:

Like a rock dividing waters,
a young and raging current,
recklessly, you will break me up
in the arms of a painful delta . . .

Out of this breaking arises self-knowledge, self-definition. The poem "Alda Merini" begins with a gentle ache: "I tenderly loved some very sweet lovers/ without them knowing anything about it." It then moves towards self-understanding, that

In me there was the soul of the prostitute
of the saint of the one who lusts for blood and of the hypocrite.

The Italian reads much better:

In me l'anima c'era della meretrice
della santa della sanguinaria e dell'ipocrita.

The whore is indistinguishable from the madonna, the private from the public. Rejecting the labels other people try to pin on her, Merini concludes with humorous self-deprecation, which is also a form of defiance, that she is "only an hysteric."

There are many fine lyrics in this selection, but one of the strongest poems is an extended meditation, written in a looser verse. "The Cry of Death" moves not so much by logic as by repetition and excess of imagery. The reader is swept past the occasional cliche by the torrent of thought, until Merini arrives at a formulation that is at once clear and obscure:

Here on the unhappy veranda, the woman
who is no model and who has no fear lies veiled for-
ever in a popular ovation that already has seen collapse
the doubt of luck and the luck of doubt.

The public, the "popular ovation," may be certain of her luck, but they do not see the unhappy woman on the verandah, who could let herself fall.

[Renée Roehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the hard copy but GR is not recognizing it--probably? because though Merini is VERY popular in Italy, she's not well known here and this is the first translation of her work into English.

I very much loved these poems. I appreciated having the Italian on the left side to compare (the best I can do anyway) and in some cases I did wish the sentence structure could have been translated more directly as my heart seemed to beat a bit faster but overall I found the translations held well.

I'm so grateful this book is out there. The introduction gives a vision of who Merini is, how she lives and the ways she's navigated sanity in this often too harsh world for such delicate, roaming spirits. The beauty of thought, the emotional depths these poems go will move you. Highly recommend.

[Cristina]

As for me, I used to be a bird
with a gentle white womb,
someone cut my throat
just for laughs,
I don’t know.
As for me, I used to be a great albatross and whirled over the seas.
Someone put an end to my journey,
without any charity in the tone of it.

But even stretched out on the ground
I sing for you now
my songs of love.

[Merinde · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this three stars because I feel like the original poems are probably a lot better than this translation and it feels unfair to rate her work too badly because of this

[Tatyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dare words,
only words, and if you listen
trusting to my song, truly
I know that you will be lifted away by my suffering.
— from “Antique Lyric”

you burn for love like a closed lily…
— from “Dream”

My love
I dreamed of you as someone dreams
of the rose and of the wind …
—from “Antique Lyric”

When, within me, the intimate fire awakens
that was the source of these storms
and I am steady, free, alive,
then will I be alone ?
—from “Will I be alone ?”

The morning was as devastating as the annunciation
of madness and weighed down on the veins
of the leaves as if a cold sharp hand
would cleave the lovers’ double
life.
—from “The Raven”


They are jewels, you see, my hands,
they are a language for living love
but a sullied chain locked them tight
and tied them to a stump.
— from “Antique Lyric”

[Imen Benyoub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elegy

Oh, the nature of the blue angels,
the ringing circles of their happy wings,
have I ever seen any of them in my dreams?
Oh yes, when I used to love you.
when I wanted so much to possess you,
or the sweet pinnacles of paradise,
the troubled woods,
when I stepped in as an open soul
lacerated by love
or the symptoms of God’s angels,
the heart’s painful returns.
Open soul, repair your wings:
I travel inside the immensity
and the immensity troubles my eyelashes.
I saw a sweet angel
grab your sweet smile
and carry it to my mouth.

[EIJANDOLUM]

“You burn for love like a closed lily…”

“The moon demands torments.”

“O beloved, from whom I slowly learn to finish all my homework,
oh extraordinary woman sail who shows the way to a port of arrival
oh historical magic oh sweet bitter
essence of muses crowned
with violets and flowers, you yourself a violet,
why on earth the most dismaying dazzling
of an unfairly denied love?”

She's magnificent.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the original poems, I like most of the translations. I really take issue with a few of the translations. But, that said, this is an important contribution to the English reading world of poetry. Alda Merini was a great poet and deserves to be well read.

[Jean-Paul Malfatti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soft and pleasant to read, although I prefer to read Alda Merini quotes and poetry in Italian, our (hers and mine) mother language.

Jean-Paul Malfatti, aspiring poet and writer.

[Cara Wess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time getting acquainted with Alda Merini, thus as you’d expect…I read the author’s note beforehand.
Immediately I was intrigued by her, but oh why do lists of accomplishments have to be dated by year and not detailed by age? I get the technical reason…accuracy, but I wish her age was given instead, since that was my initial interest in her poetry journey. The young start and the long continuence. She really had a long career and had most of her ‘turning points’ with elderly people in her life and herself; in elder years.

I appreciate the order in which the poems were printed. This, we have to thank to the original publications in the 1900’s.
The order: in the beginning poems with the exact same or similar subjects, then the distaste towards men that follows; showing Merini’s short-lived perspective change. Then the historical figure’s influence, special poems about them and about relatives and her own children. The historics especially interesting because they so subtly reveal the similar experiences Merini had to them.

It seems to me she wrote many poems, the one after the other. This produces a series-like experience to reading it, which was her intention with book-publishing.

Correct me if I’m wrong…I think there are some poems with unofficial titles. My reason: some of the poem’s titles are given in brackets and others are not.
Did Merini fail to find the time to name them?And if so, who did eventually name them? As the author of this book mentions nothing regarding the difference.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alda Merini
"I tenderly loved some very sweet lovers
without them knowing anything about it.
And I wove spiderwebs from this
and I always fell prey to my own creation.
In me there was the soul of the prostitute
of the saint of the one who lusts for blood and of the hypocrite.
Many people gave a label to my way of life
and all that while I was only an hysteric. "

[tee · Rating 3 out of 5]

i feel like there's so much of this i haven't fully absorbed, and so much i'll probably never be able to, given that this is a translation, but i will come back to this to see what changes for me in these very wonderful poems

[s · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars! i only wish i knew italian

[mai · Rating 4 out of 5]

oof

[z · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like the translation didn’t do the poems justice because they seemed mostly meh in English besides some standout lines

[Cellophane Renaissance · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Presence of Orpheus
La presenza di Orfeo

I’ll lie down, fused

with what is formless, melted within the darkness,
as far as I can, secreted and alive,

becoming chaos again...

I’ll be an unfolding flower of consent

So, within your shaping arms

I pour myself, small and immense,
serene given, restless given,
unending developing motion.




Will I be alone?
Sarò sola?

When, within me, the intimate fire awakens
that was the source of these storms

and I am steady, free, alive,

then will I be alone?

And maybe I will rip out by the roots
my postponed hope for love,





Only an angel’s hand
Solo un mano d’angelo

Only an angel’s hand

unsullied in itself, in its love for itself,

could

offer me the hollow of its palm

reversing my crying into it.

The hand of a living man

is too tangled in the threads of todays and yesterdays,



Peace
Pax

Death take away from us

that untouched minute like bread

that the lover didn’t bite into, nor the woman
at the climax of the offering.

Where life, brimming over with itself,

divides us from our bodies

and numbers us among the flock of a Shepherd
built of light,

death is born for you. Out of every suffering
the ultimate and only birth

that might ever proceed from the womb...
Even so, to us a far desire

of that brimming instant

comes struggling inside dark days

though if it plunged into the perfection

of its true essence

soon we would fall, devastated by the light.
The tree is not a tree and the flower
cannot decide on its own to be beautiful
when evil’s soul might be strengthened.
But at the day of death

when the lover, the shadowy charioteer,
lets go of the bloody reins,
yes, a purer episode

will unfold itself within a rule of the realm.
And the meaning will be revealed,

and everything in the bed

where everything fell will breathe in time,
a perfect breath.

Now only an impure desire

can take away everything, but tomorrow
when death still might rise up....



Roman wedding
Nozze romane

an eternal formula.


You will dig me down to my roots

(not to search for me, not to help me)

you will strip away everything hidden


You will overpower my core


Like a rock dividing waters,

a young and raging current,
recklessly, you will break me up




lowest

quiver,




When the anguish
Quando l’angoscia

When the anguish spreads its color

I feel the budding shoot of an ancient hunger

and the light of tomorrow dying.

come to die again 

begging again for riches from a beggar.





Dream
Sogno

During the infinite time of Greece
when paradise was given over

to the girls in warm gardens

and the vestals held ever-glowing
crowns in their wombs,
you were already alive for I had

seen you sleep-walking, I was taken aback
you were already pressing against love’s doors
without any answer. Settled-down rage

mad music of reveling Greece

incapable of toil and yet steady

in the enormous light that holds you.

Always, Violetta, the time that shadows you
within that biting nostalgia

for pure things, born out of thought

and purified in pain’s reality...

And always alone, like a thoroughbred

mare out to pasture,

rejecting the fodder men offer

you burn for love like a closed lily...







with a blade of blue crime




even so my heart sings of you,




Elegy
Elegia

Oh, the nature of the blue angels,
the ringing circles of their happy wings,
have I ever seen any of them in my dreams?
Oh yes, when I used to love you.
when I wanted so much to possess you,
or the sweet pinnacles of paradise,
the troubled woods,

when I stepped in as an open soul
lacerated by love

or the symptoms of God’s angels,
the heart’s painful returns.
Open soul, repair your wings:
I travel inside the immensity

and the immensity troubles my eyelashes.
I saw a sweet angel

grab your sweet smile and carry it to my mouth.








Strength inserts itself in strength

the spade into the earth.



Why this slowing of chaos?

Why doesn’t the word come close to me?




I enjoy sin as if it were

the beginning of well-being.




There are nights
that never
happen.






You sleep on everyone’s heart




There was a fountain that offered dawns
and that was I.





when I loved your fading path-ways.


[Oh song of the snow stuck inside the ditch]


Oh song of the snow stuck inside the ditch

light-hearted paradise that ran above water

with perfect loins declaiming the spheres


when as a young woman you leaped the barriers of sleep

and today you ascend to the stars like a movie star,

while in truth you were a hedge, a rock, a life,

sister of a question that breaks apart on the water

and like a word you inhabit destiny,


[Ravi Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Alda Merini's life and work stemming out of it to be nothing short of inspirational and deserving of even more accolades than she already has. It also showed to me how far behind Italy and Italian literature is in honouring their women poets and their dreadful experiences out of which they write such heart wrenching poetry.

Please do not see all women poets in the light of Plath and the legend around her, the dream of feminists as that politicises all the personal words of great poets.

Much recommended.

[Noah W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merini's poems offer a vocabulary and texture - the introduction described it well as "limpid" - that I've never come across before in poetry. The translator's introduction is poetry itself. Not all of the poems made entire sense to me, but they were beautiful nonetheless.

[Jeffrey Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love hath no champion above this jilted Jill. A Dido who survived. Super translation. Read my review in The Brooklyn Rail (3rd one down). http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/09/b...

[Julia Santamaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this one but I couldn't get into it.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/09/b...