Thalia

Poetry. Translated from the Italian by Nehemiah H. Brown. Bilingual Italian-English. "I try to rebuild from the rubble a building that has no foundation (Thalia), but is populated by geckos (lizards) and looks to the Cosmos as to a new resource." So writes the author Giuseppe Talia in his imaginative introduction. Thalia is one of the nine muses of ancient Greece, the goddess of song and dance, the inspirer of idyllic poetry. This is a book that celebrates the southern climes of Italy,...
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Poetry. Translated from the Italian by Nehemiah H. Brown. Bilingual Italian-English. "I try to rebuild from the rubble a building that has no foundation (Thalia), but is populated by geckos (lizards) and looks to the Cosmos as to a new resource." So writes the author Giuseppe Talia in his imaginative introduction. Thalia is one of the nine muses of ancient Greece, the goddess of song and dance, the inspirer of idyllic poetry. This is a book that celebrates the southern climes of Italy, the land of Calabria, all nature, all human joys and emotions, all beauty.

"Here the vines of squeezing
Sweet air sunset squelches
Rues of cliff funnel bitter
Turf alpaca spade velvet
Spongy flesh of the scalp
Fat fruit without more color
Genital stem of aphids and mosquitoes
Phalanges as butter and keys mixed
Here the jug broke vegetables bumped
Eyelid crack dry drop
Mood in coarse wiry
Spices cirrus taproots human
The blue layer of beardless
Heaps of stars scattered perilous
Panegyrics written in black oil
Refectory table to eat with two millstones."