Painted Fire by Maria Spaziani and translated by Lynne Lawner

This is poetry from Italy.

Painted Fire by Maria Spaziani translated by Lynne Lawner is published by Chelsea Editions. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2009.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780972527187E12.

Painted Fire, by Maria Spaziani and translated by Lynne Lawner, brings together two kinds of intensity: image and flame. Spaziani is a significant Italian poet whose work often moves through elegance, memory, culture, and lyric intelligence. The title suggests artifice without coldness, fire made visible through craft rather than merely burning. Lawner’s translation gives English-language readers access to that poised heat. I would read Painted Fire for its balance of cultivated form and emotional charge. The danger with elegant poetry is that readers sometimes mistake polish for distance. A title like this reminds us that style can be combustible. The poem may be beautifully made, but it is still dealing with heat, risk, color, and the old human problem of how to make feeling last.

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.