Nomad Diary (Diario Nomade)

Giovanni Cecchetti's Nomad Diary begins with «The Great Valley», a superb long poem which shows the course of the planet framing the course of humankind and civilization. Following poems feature mesmerizing crocodiles, crazy cypresses, giant mosquitoes, the «pollen of jazz» of New Orleans, drunken islands, and an enchanted teenager in the sea. A short collection of elegant epigrams rounds out the volume. The West and Southwest were dear to Cecchetti and appear throughout the book. His essay «On Writing Poetry in a Foreign Land» has been translated here by Raymond Petrillo.

Autorentext

The Author: Giovanni Cecchetti was born in Tuscany and educated at the University of Florence. He was later instrumental in the growth of the Italian departments at Tulane University, the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford, and UCLA. Professor Cecchetti's critical works encompass seven books and over 150 articles. He is well known as the translator into English of Verga and Leopardi. He published four volumes of poetry and three of lyrical prose. Raymond Petrillo, Emeritus Professor at Texas A & M University, published Contrappunti/Counterpoints (Peter Lang, 1997), an anthology of Cecchetti's lyrical prose; Nomad Diary is the first volume of his poetry to appear in English.
The Translator: Roberta L. Payne is Adjunct Associate Professor of English at the University of Denver. She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Denver. She studied Italian literature at Stanford, UCLA, and Harvard. She is the co-translator (with Alexandra Hennessey Olsen) of The Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta (Peter Lang, 1993) and The Novellino (Peter Lang, 1995).

Zusammenfassung
"Roberta L. Payne's translation of Giovanni Cecchetti's 'Diario nomade', accompanied by an enlightening and useful introductory essay, is welcome and timely. It is accurate and philologically sound; it has the flavor, sense, and poetic attributes of the original. Scholars and students will be thankful for the publication of well-translated poetry such as this." (Michael Lettieri, Professor of Italian and Chair, Department of French, German and Italian University of Toronto at Mississauga)
"Roberta L. Payne's splendid, faithful yet beautiful translation of Giovanni Cecchetti's 'Diario nomade' is going to keep alive and make better known to the English-speaking world one of the most distinguished Italian poetical voices of the last half of the twentieth century. This homage to a significant poet was overdue; and for this reason it is most welcome." (Paolo Cherchi, Professor Emeritus, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, The University of Chicago)