$16.95

In stock

ISBN: 978-1-62557-900-3
Categories Poetry, Translations

ORAKL

Publication Date: February 2017

Description

Pantano, a renowned poet and translator, has brought both of these talents to bear on his project. His process was to loosely translate all of the poems of Georg Trakl, then order the lines in alphabetical order by their first words. One further aspect of the organization is that while these lines share this overt linguistic kinship-due to the alphabetical ordering, but also due to the frequent repetition of a starting word-the lines do not share any apparent meaning relations. Like the Persian ghazal, where each couplet is meant to stand alone, seemingly disconnected from the others, yet also force by way of lyric disjoint a powerful effect on the reader, Pantano’s conceptual poetry forces us to leap from line to line, navigating the voids along the way. There is a jarring-yet-also-pleasurable effect created by this structure and organization. Also, the reader will immediately notice that the title of the book is only one letter off from Trakl’s name, transforming it into an oracle of sorts. This is entirely fitting, given that the lines in Pantano’s collection echo the enigmatic pronouncements of an oracle from ancient myth and given that Pantano himself serves as a sort of oracular medium in translating/altering/arranging these lines.

–From the Introduction by Okla Elliott

Praise

“Pantano offers us a chance once again to see a poet live comparative literature the way Pound did. His poetry and translations reveal that writing is different languages influencing each other at the most intimate and experienced level.”

––James Reidel

Daniele Pantano is one of Europe’s most exciting poets.”

––Southbank Centre, London

In Daniele Pantano we have found an heir to Czeslaw Milosz.”

––John Domini

Daniele Pantano is one of the leading poets of central Europe.”

––3am Magazine

Daniele Pantano is one of the most interesting and versatile English-language poets of his generation.”

––Neue Zürcher Zeitung

About the Author

Daniele Pantano

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, essayist, literary translator, critic, editor, and artist born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). He has published over twenty volumes of poetry, essays, translations, and conceptual literature, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Pantano is Associate Professor (Reader) and Programme Leader for the MA Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. For more information, please visit www.pantano.ch.

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