Thread: Hidden Gems
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Unread 04-10-2017, 06:32 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Yes, and we seem to be sticking to modernity here as well.
I've edited my post with the poets' names more clearly indicated - thanks, Bill. Quasimodo as far as i can tell has not been well served by translators, but there's a good bilingual Montale, by Galassi, from which i shall quote:

"Haul your paper ships on the seared
shore, little captain,
and sleep, so you won't hear
the evil spirits setting sail in swarms.

In the kitchen garden the owl darts
and wet smoke hangs heavy on the roofs.
The moment that ruins the slow work of months
is here: now it cracks in secret, now shears with a gust.

The break is coming: maybe with no sound.
The builder knows his day of reckoning.
Only the grounded boat is safe for now.
Tie up your flotilla in the canes."

Eugenio Montale

The Vintage also seems to lack Aleixandre, another Nobel laureate. But it beats Milosz's rather idiosyncratic A Book of Luminous Things. I don't myself know a better modern world poetry anthology.
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