From “Praise for the Male Body”, and: From “Praise for the Male Body”, and: To Hart Crane
- From “Praise for the Male Body”, and: From “Praise for the Male Body”, and: To Hart Crane
FROM “PRAISE FOR THE MALE BODY”
Translated from the Italian by Peter Covino
Neither male nor female, that gaze.From outside the serene air invadesreality. I don’t see, blindfrom the beginning; I deface myself to thinkabout the happy contests of a different age,devoid of death’s vice. [End Page 116]
FROM “PRAISE FOR THE MALE BODY”
Translated from the Italian by Peter Covino
Hey boy down there, hidden treasurewith your mannequin torsohanging from its heart, manipulatedfirst by you, o mangle of the inaneand vigorous middle classes that want my blood!Yes, manhandled by you first, but calmlythose nights with you when you returnedlate … It was youth, thieving passionof extraordinary events:guitar and wine, bread and saladand victory over your bodymartyred by Desire …
I’ll live within your sorrowwaiting for celestial punishmentsfor my frivolity, but I am no longera poet of love, nor does today’sconsolation allow me to evoke the Past.I close my eyes, and think if only I couldreturn to what I was. As I will never be again. [End Page 117]
TO HART CRANE
Translated from the Italian by Peter Covino
Terrible Eros, oh anguishanguish, joy of sexjust before you touch his excess!
Changeable one, listen to me, changeable onedestroy me as the boy’s thin face dailybrightens with misfortune,he comes, he faints, he revivesin the warm morning bedto cry his ardorthat flows slowly, without sensualityor purity in love with himself aloneand nothing else!
That’s how you cried out Hart, dear HartAmerican poet dead by suicidethat’s how you cried to the nocturnal windfrom the great precipitous bridgeinto death’s funereal abyss. [End Page 118]
Italian poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and gay activist Dario Bellezza (1944–99), an openly queer writer who died a premature death caused by aids-related complications, won wide acclaim, including the Viareggio Prize in 1976, as well as the Montale Prize. Despite consistent accolades, Bellezza’s work remains somewhat marginalized and not readily available to an English-speaking audience. These poems are from his prescient transgender-themed collection Serpenta (Snakewoman), 1987.
Poet, scholar, and translator Peter Covino is associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of Rhode Island and author of several books, including, most recently, The Right Place to Jump (New Issues Press, 2012).
