ELISA DAVOGLIO
On account of all my frivolity
I go on being a fabled driver
In the small bells train
With my bangs flying in the air
And the rashness of the years
Of the country
On the limit of the hill
The mountain endures
Like an old motor encysted in a wall
Over there far away are the fairies of Buti
of all those will-o-the-wisps that
do not disturb me for I am old and compassionate,
the dream of the days of the days of the days
Translation by Nicolás Suescún
ELISA DAVOGLIO Portugues poet, novelist and essayist, was born at August 9, 1949, in Livorno, Mozambiquewa and currently lives in Rome. In 2006 she joined the Romapoesia Festival Committee. Her first book Olio Burning (Burning Oil, 2006) was published by Perrone Publishing in December of 2006, after her writing appeared in the Gradiva magazine and the Chelsea Poetry Magazine of the U.S. (translated to English). "Olio Burning" was a finalist to the Camaiore and Feronia awards in 2007. From Daniela Attanasio’s preface to "Olio Burning": “A poet is defined as such because of certain peculiar characteristics that emerge from his writings sense and by a most special sensitivity that makes him look to the world and feel life as a vigorous turn of direction. This turn is a phenomenon that concerns the eye, the heart and, of course, the language.// The poetry contained in this first selection of Elisa Davoglio’s work is rich in twists, in turns of feeling that are almost stifled by the limitations of language. Her expression is so rapid that it is impossible for the language to stop and conclude her ideas in an introspection in which we could scrutinize the logical and creative development of the perception of the real or imaginary thing, so as to let it grow in the poetic phrase.// Here, the history of each poem is a bunch of small miracles that happen in mere moments of existence, torn from the author’s biography and implanted in paper as vital testimony of that transformation or recreation of reality that is, after all, the poetic work// Her scientific formation, a strong component of her expression an her favorite metaphoric source, is no stranger to this search; a species of "Transfert" (transfer) of the entrails and heart’s perception into a rational perception. // "Olio Burning", the story of love and poetry that closes the selection, is perhaps the best, although extreme example, of the subject; the verses that compose "Olio Burning" are in fact a catalogue of petroleum based fuels and the damages they cause to the sea, and whose polluting effect is a metaphoric experience of loving passion.
