Within the Sweet Noise of Life by Sandro Penna and translated by Alexander Booth

This is poetry from Italy.

Within the Sweet Noise of Life by Sandro Penna translated by Alexander Booth is published by Seagull Books. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2021.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780857427878E12.

Within the Sweet Noise of Life, translated from the Italian by Alexander Booth, brings Sandro Penna’s Italian-language work into English through Seagull Books. Published in 2021, it is best approached as a book of encounter rather than as a book to solve. Penna’s title is gentle without being slight, locating lyric attention inside the noise, sweetness, eros, and daily drift of living. I would begin with the poem itself: the image that refuses to behave, the phrase that gives the page a new temperature, the pressure of voice moving from one language into another. Good translated poetry does not only deliver information about Italy. It changes the reader’s sense of what English can hold, which makes this volume both a literary record and a readerly invitation.

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.