Poems by Monica Guerra 

un’azzurrità lattea s’insinua
tra le pieghe dell’equinozio
sul sangue che scurisce
la ferita è un corpo
ma cicatrizza
mentre il sole indugia
l’autunno ripete guerra
due sillabe guaste
senza ombra di memoria
 
 

a milky blueness crawls
among the folds of the equinox
on the blood that darkens
the wound is a body
but it heals
while the sun lingers
autumn repeats war
two rotten syllables
and not a shadow of recall



Amarsi È Dalle Briciole
 
la sola idea di averti posseduto
è di per sé ridicola
 
il privilegio semmai è averti amato
nelle ore piovose quando il vento si fa canto
 
tra le dita verdi delle palme
o nelle ore curve di neve quando la luce
 
annienta ogni colore
lo scorcio turrito e la città che chiama
 
a pochi passi dal niente 
ai piedi della cattedrale perché è un niente
 
che abita i giorni quieti se abbiamo amato
è il niente in cui si schiude l’universo
 
 
Loving Is From Crumbs
 
the very idea of having possessed you
is in itself ridiculous
 
the privilege, if anything, is to have loved you
in the rainy hours when the wind is singing
 
among the green fingers of the palms
or in the curved hours of snow when the light
 
annihilates every color
the turreted view and the city calling
 
just a few steps from nothing 
at the foot of the cathedral because it is a nothing
 
that inhabits the quiet days if we have loved
is the nothing in which the universe unfolds

Monica Guerra was born in Faenza, Italy in 1972.  Some of her monographic publications are: A ogni latitudine / At every latitude (Il Vicolo, 2024); Entro fuori le mura (Archipelago Itaca, 2021); Nella moltitudine (Il Vicolo, 2020); Sulla soglia /On the Threshold (Samuele Editore, 2017); Sotto Vuoto (Il Vicolo, 2016); Il respiro dei luoghi (Il Vicolo, 2014). She has also published the following syllogies: FuoriCampo in volumes 29-32 nr. 1-2 of L'anello che non tiene - Journal of Modern Italian Literature (Wisconsin University, 2022); Spezzare il pane, in the Quarto Repertorio di Poesia Italiana Contemporanea (Arcipelago Itaca, 2020); Expectations, in the Journal of Italian Studies (Northeast Modern Language Association, 2019).
She has collaborated as a translator on the following publications: La bilancia del cielo by Nadia Scappini (Graphie, 2021); Diventa l’albero by George Mario Angel Quintero (Samuele Editore, 2020); Hundred Great Indian Poems edited by Abhay K. (Bloomsbury, India 2018). She has translated from Romanian several poems of Constantin Severin and Ion Muresan (Independent Poetry, online publications, 2024).
Her texts are translated into English, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian and are featured in several anthologies and monographic books.  She led a two-year translation workshop at Târgu Mureș University from which the book In prag (University Press, 2024) was born; she was a guest speaker at the New York Poetry Festival in October 2024 and presented her work as a poet and translator at Cuny University in New York in the same year. In 2020 she was a guest speaker at the North-East Modern Language Association conference in Washington, hosted by Georgetown University.
She leads poetry writing and translation workshops, readings and presentations. She is president of Independent Poetry Association and part of its editorial board.
www.monicaguerra.it

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