Poems by Laura Accerboni

Si vestono
per la colazione
al posto
della pelle
indossano
animali
vivi
dopo il caffè
si danno
la caccia
da soli.
 
They dress
for breakfast
instead
of skin
they wear
live
animals
after coffee
they hunt
themselves
down.



Quando
abbiamo iniziato
a mangiare
ogni cosa
ci capitasse
accanto
e anche
il corpo
dell’altro
quando per caso
cascava
c’era come
un suono
di acqua
oltre i nostri
denti
un moto immenso
che indietro
ci proiettava.
 

When
we started
to eat
everything
that happened
to be there
and even
the body
of another
when it happened
to fall
there was
a sound
sort of
like water
louder
than our teeth
a massive moving
which backward
​flung us.

Acqua acqua fuoco (Einaudi, 2020). Translated by J. Bishop.

Laura Accerboni (1985) works in poetry and photography. She has published the poetry collections Il prima e il dopo dell'acqua (Einaudi, 2024), Acqua acqua fuoco (Einaudi, 2020), La parte dell’annegato (Nottetempo, 2015; Eloisa Cartonera, 2019), Attorno a ciò che non è stato (Edizioni del Leone, 2010). Her poems have been published in various Italian and international magazines such as Nuova corrente, Poesia, Italian Poetry Review, Gradiva, Loch Raven Review, Kluger Hans. She has received several literary awards including: Lerici Pea giovani (1996), Premio internazionale di poesia Piero Alinari (2011), Premio Achille Marazza Opera Prima (2012), Premio The Italian Review - TIR (2025) . Her poems have been translated into more than fifteen languages, and she has been a guest at numerous international festivals including: Poetry International Rotterdam (Netherlands), Felix Poetry Festival (Belgium), Struga Poetry Evenings (Macedonia), Poetas D(in)versos (Coruñ a), Babel Festival of Literature and Translation (Switzerland), Chiasso Letteraria (Switzerland), Internationales Literatur festival Leukerbad (Switzerland), Poetry on the Road (Germany), 10Tal / The Stockholm Poetry Festival (Sweden), Buenos Aires Book Fair (Argentina). Since 2016, she has been among the poets selected for the Versopolis project promoted by the European Union.​

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