Culture. Eat it
14 May 2018
Her verses remained relegated in a drawer for a long time but fortunately not forever.
Today on the nightstand there is the great poetess of Puritan America Emily Dickinson: Il cuore in libertà.
The rebel nun, as she defined herself, writes about the world from her room in her father’s house; at only 23 years, in fact, the author withdraws to avoid social obligations or who knows.
What is surprising when you read her verses is that, despite this, the Dickinson is capable of great intensity almost as if, far from the world, she could see what is totally hidden to those who are completely immersed.
I have no Life but this
To lead it here
Nor any Death, but lest
Dispelled from thereNor tie to Earths to come
Nor Action new
Except through this extent
The realm of you
That much is her sensitivity that everything becomes poetry.
I know lives, I could miss
Without a Misery
Others whose instant’s wanting
Would be EternityThe last a scanty Number
‘Twould scarcely fill a Two
The first a Gnat’s Horizon
Could easily outgrow
Her poems were “released” only in 1955 when her sister discovered them in booklets bound in her room. A freedom that the italian translator, Nicola Gardini, wanted to celebrate also in the italian title, Il cuore in libertà, for which the composition 384 is strongly inspired:
No Rack can torture me
My Soul at Liberty
Behind this mortal Bone
There knits a bolder OneYou Cannot prick with saw
Nor pierce with Cimitar
Two Bodies therefore be
Bind One The Other flyThe Eagle of his Nest
No easier divest
And again the Sky
Than mayest ThouExcept Thyself may be
Thine Enemy
Captivity is Consciousness
So’s Liberty.
This precious small volume provides for all of the 45 compositions their original version on the facing page. Without the English text one would only grasp the rhythm that the poet was able to give to her writing in verse.
Words sound even when we do not pronounce them, they make noise even when they are only written.
Word of Emily Dickinson.
Reading time
some evening in freedom
Ph. Sara Cartelli
© The Eat Culture
Author
Bio:
She is an art historian, optimistic and empathic by nature. She imagines a world where sow kindness enjoying the little things. She's in love with stories since she was a child, for the Eat Culture she eats books and arts. Per aspera ad astra says the only tattoo on her skin. It reminds her that the road that leads to her dreams is not always easy but that she never gives up.
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