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 Tiziano Fratus was born in Italy in the year in which Pier Paolo Pasolini died, Eugenio Montale received the Literature Nobel Prize, and F.I.A.T. stopped to produce the model 500; he directs Festival and Press Torino Poesia.
He has published eight books of poetry: Lumina (2003, Rome), L’inquisizione (2004, Roma - trad. A inquisiçao, Lisbon), Il molosso (2005, Rome), La torsione (2006, Torino), Il Molosso. Poema d’un’anima (2007, Torino - second edition), Il Ventre (2007, Torino), Il Vangelo della Carne (trad. Flesh Gospel - 2008, Torino).
A new book is forthcoming in January 2009, Il respiro della terra (trad. Ground Breathing), containing two already published collections and two new ones, I figli della pietà e di Mohammed Alì and L’angelo di Mishima.
His poetry has been published in magazines, websites and anthologies, featured in national and international festivals, translated, published or performed in Portugal, France, Holland, Poland, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Singapore and soon in the UK, Germany, Hong Kong, and Australia. In 2008 his poem A Room in Jerusalem (published in Il Vangelo della Carne) will be translated into English and published by Farfalla Press (Brooklyn), in preparation for a tour to New York, Washington, Burlington, and Chicago. Meanwhile, his poetry will be part of bilingual anthologies about new Italian poets published in Switzerland, Canada, and Scotland.
Fratus has worked in theatre, editing books for publishing house Editoria & Spettacolo in Rome, collaborating with the National Centre for Contemporary Drama in Milan, and directing for three years the theatrical season «Dissezioni» for Teatro Fondamenta Nuove in Venice. To find out more about Tiziano Fratus, see www.torinopoesia.org.
Poem translated by Francesco Levato
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Italian version
Visita
le lacrime che ti scivolano cadono nella tazzina
che stringi a te contro lo sterno
nel chiudere gli occhi non riesci
la sera prima di addormentarti
nella tua stanza piena di polvere e libri
e custodie oramai schiuse di cd
a prendere sonno
sei braccato dai latrati dei cani di lamiera
che si sfaldano dopo l’esplosione
dell’aereo su cui noi viaggiavamo
stavi lavorando al nuovo libro
una raccolta di racconti
mentre noi si andava a nord a presentare le poesie
i latrati che ti rincorrono prima del sonno
le lamiere che hanno scheggiato i nostri corpi
l’opportunità che hai perso
di diventare uno scritture a cui i tuoi coetanei
possano fare visita sulla tomba
come tu in questo istante
con una tazza di caffè raffreddato
stretto al ventre
incavato nello stomaco ricamato
le mani avvolte in guanti di preghiera
lo sai che chi resta vivo morirà dimenticato
mentre chi muore prima viene ricordato
quasi sorridi nel pensarlo
versi il caffè nella pianta che adorna la tomba
intoni river man di nick drake
il tuo caffè è terribilmente salato
English version
Visit
The tears that slip from you fall in the little cup
that you hold to your breastbone
closing your eyes, unable,
in the evening before falling asleep
in your room full of dust and books
and CD cases now open,
to sleep
hunted by the baying of sheet-metal dogs
that disintegrate after the explosion
of the airplane on which we were traveling
you were working on a new book
a collection of stories
while we were going north to present poems
the baying that pursues you before sleep
the sheet-metal that slivered our bodies
the opportunity you lost
of becoming a writer whose contemporaries
can visit at the grave
like you in this moment
with a cup of cold coffee
tight against stomach
a hollow in the stomach embroidered
hands wrapped in prayer gloves
you know that the one who remains alive will die forgotten
while the one who dies early will be remembered
you almost smile thinking about it
pour the coffee in the plant adorning the gave
begin singing River Man by Nick Drake
your coffee is terribly salty. |
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