Hunting Images: On Poetry, Art, & Translation
Hunting for images implies coming out of the hole of ourselves, out of ourselves, and facing what terrifies us. […] The operation is a dislocation of the gaze that arises from a reflection on loss, an exercise in dispossession that leads to a land where the self fades away and it is the lives of others that count. (Anedda, 2024)
An evening in honor of Italian poet and writer Antonella Anedda, who will speak of her interest in art, poetry and the possibility to derive “thought through [her] eyes,” as proposed by Joyce in his Ulysses. Anedda will present on French artist Sophie Calle (b. 1953) and will be joined by her translator, Patrizio Ceccagnoli, for a bilingual poetry reading and conversation on poetry, art and translation.
Antonella Anedda is an Italian poet and essayist, whose literary work is often inspired by art. She was born in Rome to a Sardinian family in 1955. She studied literature in Rome and was awarded a PhD at the University of Oxford. She is the author of more than fourteen books and the recipient of many awards including the prestigious Viareggio-Repaci Prize, the Pushkin Prize and the 2024 Umberto Saba Poesia Prize. In 2019, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Sorbonne University for her literary works. She is a lecturer at the University of Lugano, Switzerland, and her last book is her complete poems (Tutte le poesie) published by Garzanti in 2023.
Patrizio Ceccagnoli is a literary critic and translator, a managing editor of Italian Poetry Review, and an associate professor of Italian at the University of Kansas. He was a finalist for the American Literary Translator’s Association Annual Award for his work co-translating Milo de Angelis and translated five books of the Canadian writer Anne Carson. With Susan Stewart he co-translated Anedda's Historiae in 2023 (NYRB).
For info: gp5mt@virginia.edu
This talk is part of The Siren Project: Women’s Voice in Literature and the Visual Arts
With generous support from: Page-Barbour Endowment
Image: Detail from Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself, 2004-2007.