An Orchid Shining in the Hand by Lorenzo Calogero and translated by John Taylor

This is poetry from Italy.

An Orchid Shining in the Hand by Lorenzo Calogero translated by John Taylor is published by Chelsea Editions. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2015.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780986106125E12.

An Orchid Shining in the Hand, by Lorenzo Calogero and translated by John Taylor, has one of those titles that already feels like a poem. Calogero’s Italian poetry carries a reputation for isolation, intensity, and posthumous discovery, and the image of the orchid in the hand gives us beauty made tactile, fragile, and almost impossible to keep. Taylor’s translation introduces English readers to a lyric voice that deserves more attention. I would read this book for its tremor between delicacy and pressure. An orchid can be ornate, but in the hand it becomes vulnerable; the hand itself becomes a site of wonder and risk. Some poems survive because they glow in exactly that way: briefly held, almost too alive to explain.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.