For two and a half months last year, we curated the series: In This Together: Writers From Around the World Respond to the COVID-19 Outbreak, featuring writers from Argentina to Portugal to Hong Kong. One year on, with Italy in lockdown again as it battles a third wave of COVID-19, we present another piece responding to the pandemic, tinged with hope, by Italian poet Lucia Marchetti in the endangered language of al djalètt pramzàn, spoken in the province of Parma in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. This poem was published as a voice recording by local newspaper La Gazzetta di Parma at the pandemic’s outbreak last year. Co-translator Julia Pelosi-Thorpe writes: “In it, Marchetti describes COVID as the crown (wordplay with ‘corona,’ ‘crown’ in Italian) on the head of a wicked king. This poem is co-translated by me and my mother, Ligia Pelosi. She grew up near Parma, and migrated with my nonni to Naarm (now known as Melbourne), where I was born, as a young teenager. After I produced a first full draft, my mother and I listened together, capturing any missed or misheard words. I then revised the piece into a final draft.”
a wicked king
reviews a not-too-distant world
a bad king 👑corona👑 on his head
sowed death
among humans
swelling like a moonlit tide and all
the population were divided friends
and kin watching one another from a distance
here a situation very grey yet king
with his 👑corona👑 still advancing
advancing bringing grief and ruin
and bit by bit the people were dismayed
then when they really understood
their lesson all was suddenly recalled
so many seaside trips recalled lovely trips
up and down the mountains and their unrest
to find a place to live a cornucopia
they realised happiness had
been close in so many moments
wishing to go back
from the bottom of their hearts feeling the burst again
wishing to tell all they love them
to embrace the first person found along the street as if a cousin
to celebrate a life renewed
Translated from al djalètt pramzàn by Ligia Pelosi and Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe
Lucia Marchetti resides in Parma, Italy. She is currently working on a book of poems in the Parmesan dialect, al djalètt pramzàn, to be published this year.
Ligia Pelosi was born near Parma, Italy. After migrating to Australia in the 1970s, she has worked in education, in primary schools and in academia, as a researcher, educator, and writer.
Julia Anastasia Pelosi-Thorpe’s translations of Italian and Latin poetry are published in the Journal of Italian Translation, Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, The Poetry Society’s The Poetry Review, and more. She can be found at @jpelosithorpe.
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