Posts featuring Lucia Marchetti

Translation Tuesday: “a wicked king” by Lucia Marchetti

With Italy in lockdown again as it battles a third wave of COVID-19, Lucia Marchetti urges hope in the following response to the pandemic.

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

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