Primo Levi, "Epitaph"

[Senna Jawa]

--


Epitaph

Oh you, passing by this hill -- one
Among many -- who mark this no longer solitary snow,
Hear my story. Stop for a few moments
Here where, dry-eyed, my comrads buried me,
Where, every summer, the gentle field-grass fed by me
Grows thicker and greener than elsewhere.
Killed by my companions for no small crime,
I, Micca the partisan, haven't lain here many years,
Hadn't live many more when darkness struck.

Passer-by, I ask no pardon of you or any other,
No prayer or lament, no special remembrance.
Only one thing I beg: that this peace of mine endure,
That heat and cold succeed each other endlessly above me,
Without fresh blood filtering through clods
To reach me with its deadly warmth,
Waking to new pain these bones long turned to stone.
​

Primo Levi,
1952-10-06

(tr. Ruth Feldman & Brian Swann)

 

[Liar]

Cool. Levi as a poet is something I for some odd reason have not come around to read.

Was there any specific reason you posted this, Senna? Or just for the enjoyment?

 

[Senna Jawa]

Cool. Levi as a poet is something I for some odd reason have not come around to read.

Was there any specific reason you posted this, Senna? Or just for the enjoyment?

Liar and everybody, do read Primo Levi, he's a truly great poet.

I posted this poem, yes, for your enjoyment, and to present Levi, and to show that there are certain basic laws of poetry, shared by all great poets from the old Chinese poets, to Du Fu, to skalds, to Levi and Lesmian and others. The purity, the imagery, avoidance of explicit philosophical and general statements... They are very different poets. In particular Lesmian is incredibly original, unique. You have Du Fu, whose poems helped to restore the history of his times (of China), and Lesmian, who's poetry never addresses the real social and political events around him (with an exception of one, not too important poem by him). And still you can feel the great convergence of the true art.

I got an extra pleasure from Levi's "Chess" and "Chess II". The very concept of chess as a game is metaphoric. When poets play the metaphoric game in their chess poems it feels uninteresting to me. But here Levi tries the same theme and he succeeds splendidly. In "Chess" he animates pieces. Otherwise there are no metaphors in his poems, except that the poems each as a total are, each is a wonderful metaphor.

This is what one of the best Internet poets, Michael McNeilley, was doing so well. He wrote poems-short stories, which were straight stories but at the same time they were, the whole poem, a metaphor. You read such a poem, then you take a step back and look at the whole and ... think.

Regards,

Senna Jawa
​

 

[wildsweetone]

wow why didn't i know about Michael McNeilley?!