Small Talk by Raffaello Baldini and translated by Adria Bernardi

This is poetry from Italy.

Small Talk by Raffaello Baldini translated by Adria Bernardi is published by Gradiva. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2009.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781892021366E12.

Small Talk, by Raffaello Baldini and translated by Adria Bernardi, gives humble speech a literary charge. Baldini is known for work rooted in dialect, locality, theater, and the rhythms of ordinary talk, and that makes translation especially interesting here. Small talk can sound trivial, but it often carries social fear, tenderness, gossip, loneliness, and the comedy of being alive among others. Bernardi’s translation has to bring not only meaning across, but voice, timing, and everyday pressure. I would read Small Talk for its attention to the minor utterance, the thing said because silence would be too much. Poetry does not always need elevated diction. Sometimes it needs the awkward brilliance of people talking just enough to keep one another nearby.

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.