Scholars to give readings in two languages from new translation of Italian poetry collection

Post updated at 12:12 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4:

Local scholars Patrizio Ceccagnoli and Megan Kaminski will give readings and discuss the art of translation during a Monday evening event.

“Historiae” is a 2018 poetry collection by Antonella Anedda. Ceccagnoli and Susan Stewart have translated it from Italian into English, making it available to English readers for the first time, according to a news release from the Raven Book Store.

During Monday’s event, Ceccagnoli and poet Kaminsky will read Anedda’s work, first in Italian and then in English.

“The evening will conclude with an open discussion of ‘Historiae’ and the art of translation, with time for attendees to get their books signed at the end,” according to the release.

Ceccagnoli is a translator, managing editor of “Italian Poetry Review,” and professor of Italian at the University of Kansas. Kaminski, a professor in KU’s creative writing and environmental studies programs, is the author of three poetry books and, recently, “Prairie Divination,” a book of illustrated essays and oracle deck in collaboration with artist L. Ann Wheeler, and “Quietly Between,” a co-authored collection of poetry and photography.

Stanley Lombardo, a professor emeritus of classics at KU, was expected to read from his related translations during the event. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he will not be able to attend.

“Instead, Ceccagnoli will be reading a canto from Lombardo’s translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy,” Wulfe Wulfemeyer, marketing coordinator and bookseller for the Raven, said in a Monday email. “Additionally, the event will now feature recordings of Antonella Anedda reciting her original work!”

Here’s some information about “Historiae” via the Raven: “Tacitus, the brooding historian of the Roman Empire, supplies the title of Antonella Anedda’s Historiae, in which she grapples with a legacy of Mediterranean displacement and violence that stretches from antiquity to the present day.

“In this bilingual edition, Anedda writes about the aftermath of centuries of colonization, about the ongoing European immigration crisis, and about the wild Sardinian archipelago of La Maddalena and the teeming Roman neighborhood of Trastevere — places between which she has divided her life — in a wonderfully various collection where poems of community frame poems of private life, among them a moving elegy for her mother. With wit, insight, and economy, Anedda reminds us that history is plural and that our perspectives, too, are constituted by pluralities — by events both present and past, both world-shaking and exquisitely mundane.”

The event is set for 7 to 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4 at the Raven Book Store, 809 Massachusetts St. Learn more about the event and the book at this link.

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