by Alice Quinn
This week, we’re excited to hold aloft poems from beautiful volumes brought out by Tavern Books of Portland, Oregon and Salt Lake City with this mission:
In addition to reviving books that have fallen out of print, we seek to build a catalog of poetry in translation from the finest writers of our modern era.
Out of appreciation for these goals and the unerring taste embodied in the books published thus far, we are posting three poems this week from the Tavern list and direct readers of The Dish to the Tavern Books site to learn more about their efforts. The first selection is “I’ll Protect Myself” by Leonardo Sinisgalli:
I’ll protect myself from the quick wind
Dusting the piazza light
On the tops of the poplars.
In the quivering pause a swarm
Of leaves climbs the brow of the wall
And thrashes there, a voice
Aching in me all night long.
Again I feel the sad
Vocation to exist,
Dying to seek myself in every place.
(From Night of Shooting Stars: The Selected Poems of Leonardo Sinisgalli, translated, from the Italian, by W.S.Di Piero. Used by kind permission of Tavern Books. Photo by Flickr user Paolo)
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