Space, give me space—more space
to move my wound with sweetness;
I want space to sing grow
wander and jump into the ditch
of divine wisdom.
Give me space—space
and I’ll release a nonhuman scream,
this silent scream I kept inside
my fistful of years.
*
Fear of your eyes
Fear of your eyes,
that pure peak
where thought pulses
fear of your hidden
gaze the algebra-velvet
you use to traverse me,
fear of your hands
easy magnets
that ask for blood,
fear of your knees
that press into my womb
and then more fear
forever fear,
until the sea submerges
this feeble flesh of mine
and I lie exhausted
on you who becomes the beach
and I, becoming wave,
you strike and strike
with Love’s oar.
*
I have found my perfect moment—
a small, silent bird,
delirious with peace,
cradled in my wounded hands.
I’ve always borne stigmata
since I sinned
against the cruel fate
with a moment of love.
Farewell, farewell my cloister,
my precise home
I will leave you for trees
for shrubs and flowers
but I shall carry your earthly grave
inside my womb
inside my swollen breasts
that nursed the angels
since the day of my creation.
*
I fell in love
with my own angel wings,
with my nostrils sucking the night,
I fell in love with myself
and my own torments.
A harrow that digs inside of things,
or perhaps, having become damsel,
I lost my human appearance.
How naked you are, my love,
naked and unshielded:
I am the true lyre
that strikes you in the chest
and resonates with all you give.
from Emptied of Love
Alda Merini
translated from the Italian by a. Monti
Listen to:
The poems in this selection are drawn from Vuoto d’amore (Emptied of Love; Einaudi, 1991). Merini wrote with a simplicity that conceals the philosophical, mystical, and theological depths of her verse. Throughout the massive output of the Milanese poet—extensive in time and ink—carnality and spirituality are two recurrent themes that are distinctive marks of Merini’s poetic universe. These themes are rooted in Christian iconography and mysticism, yet they are filtered through Merini’s experience.
Merini’s poetics disrupt the dualism embedded in Western thought—mind and body, spirit and flesh, masculine and feminine, human and animal—by breaking it open and pointing at its limitedness, incompleteness, and inaccuracy.
Her early work dwells on the painful disjunction between body and soul, frequently circling around themes of death, lost love, and bodily transcendence. Later poems bear witness to her experience of being hospitalized and the spiritual revelations that emerged from it. Vuoto d'Amore is part of a phase in her oeuvre, in which the body begins to become a site not merely of suffering but also of mystical encounters—“the edge,” as philosopher Richard Kearney writes, “where the human meets worlds that exceed and entreat it.”
The difficulty of translating Merini lies in preserving the ecstatic and oracular nature of her voice, its precision and lyricism. Her frequent use of anaphora, inversion, and sermonic rhythm gives her verse a lullaby-like musicality that I have sought to echo in English. These translations attempt to retain both the rawness and refinement of Merini’s line—the voice of a poet who, as Franca Pellegrini notes, understood her gift as one that bore within it the force of liberation.
Merini’s poetics disrupt the dualism embedded in Western thought—mind and body, spirit and flesh, masculine and feminine, human and animal—by breaking it open and pointing at its limitedness, incompleteness, and inaccuracy.
Her early work dwells on the painful disjunction between body and soul, frequently circling around themes of death, lost love, and bodily transcendence. Later poems bear witness to her experience of being hospitalized and the spiritual revelations that emerged from it. Vuoto d'Amore is part of a phase in her oeuvre, in which the body begins to become a site not merely of suffering but also of mystical encounters—“the edge,” as philosopher Richard Kearney writes, “where the human meets worlds that exceed and entreat it.”
The difficulty of translating Merini lies in preserving the ecstatic and oracular nature of her voice, its precision and lyricism. Her frequent use of anaphora, inversion, and sermonic rhythm gives her verse a lullaby-like musicality that I have sought to echo in English. These translations attempt to retain both the rawness and refinement of Merini’s line—the voice of a poet who, as Franca Pellegrini notes, understood her gift as one that bore within it the force of liberation.
Alda Merini (1931–2009) was an Italian poet from Milan. She began writing poetry as a child and published her first poems when she was a teenager. Her precocious talent was noticed and praised by authors such as Eugenio Montale and Pier Paolo Pasolini. What seemed to be a brilliant poetic career was temporarily halted by Merini’s mental health issues and her subsequent commitment to the Paolo Pini Psychiatric Hospital in Milan from 1965 to 1972, which was followed by periods of freedom and brief hospital stays. After a long silence following the publication of the collection Tu sei Pietro (You are Peter; Giovanni Scheiwiller, 1962), Merini published her masterpiece, La Terra Santa (The Holy Land; Giovanni Scheiwiller, 1984). She was the recipient of several important literary prizes, including the Premio Librex Montale and Premio Viareggio, and was also nominated for the Nobel Prize. Merini continued to write and publish copiously until the end. She died in her beloved Milan.
a. Monti is a cross-disciplinary poet and translator based between Berlin and New York. They are an Associate Editor at Litmus Press and hold an MFA in writing from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Monti has taught seminars and workshops on performance writing, poetry, and experimental sound work; they have presented their work in the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom, including at The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church (New York), Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), and The Austrian Cultural Forum. Monti works with English, German, and Italian. They were born in an elevator in Rome, Italy, going up to the third floor.
