FRANCO SCATAGLINI Sanzio Balducci
In the dialect landscape, not of the Marches alone, Scataglini's poetry stands out immediately for the distance it establishes with the dialect of Ancona, which should be its referent. A distance which is not detachment, because it remains an original phonic substance, even if it seems almost devoid of a cultural and anthropological context. Scataglini himself wrote: "My dialect does not correspond to actual speech, or it does only in its sounds. It is through these that I can conjure an original similarity: my models are from the thirteenth century." Thus his first work (after the chapbook Echi, 1950, in Italian), has for title a verse taken from a sonnet by Jacopo da Lentini, E per un frutto piace tutto un orto (1973), followed by So' rimaso la spina (1977) and Carta laniena (1982).
The first book already contains the places and allegories of the last Scataglini, as shown in the poem "El tuo remoto fondo," chosen as evidence of a melancholy eros, although vigilant and not without a light irony, and consisting of two quatrains of seven-syllable lines replete with emblems of courtly poetry (the woman, the fountain, the image.)
"Carcere demolito," from So' rimaso la spina (I am left like a fish bone), is perhaps one of Scataglini's most beautiful poems. The demolition of the Sanata Palazia prison, in the old part of the city, uncovers a dug-out (chiogia quadrata) which seems to point to the places of punishment and depicts, with great concision, their objects and suffering. In the splendid third part, the seagulls fly over that world of fear and distress, a symbol as well of the labyrinths of the self, and a prelude to the section that unites infinity and prison in the single wasteland of the human condition.
With Carta laniena, a Latin expression that stands for "slaughterhouse" and "laceration," Scataglini seems to depict his own purgatorial journey, in an autobiographical sense and as a way of leaving behind a psychoanalytical experience. "The person who writes - Massimo Raffaelli noted - looks at sacrifice from the shore, a salvation in some way already attained." A condition which crystalizes in the subsequent Laudario (1982-1986), contained in the anthology Rimario Agontano (1968-1986).
Carta laniena, the poem that provides the title, can constitute a synthesis of this journey "de storia e alegoria" (of history and allegory), of this crossing that seems to lead to nowhere, but that retains inscribed, tattooed, "ciarma de le turmente," sewn on Jews' clothes, the most tragic icon.
For La Rosa, a poem published in 1992, a free adaptation of the first part of the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and a variegated play of allegories, choosing only one text would have been unsatisfactory, because the balance of each poem depends on the web of relationships it has with the others. It is better then to include El sol, which came out posthumously in 1995, an autobiographical poem with a rigorous pattern of verses and chapters, completed a few days before his death, which is a description of the Italian province where the sun is the acronym of the Società Ossigeno Liquido that, as Franco Brevini wrote, "raised its smokestack over the poet's childhood."
Criticism
Bortolo Pento, in La Fiera letteraria, December 23, 1973.
Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti, in Tuttolibri, June 24, 1978.
Giuseppe Tonna, in Poesia marginale e marginalità della poesia, Ancona-Urbino: Edizioni Marche-Oggi, 1980.
Franco Brevini, Poeti dialettali del Novecento, cit..
Franco Brevini, Le parole perdute, cit..
Cesare Segre, Introduction to La Rosa, cit..
Giacinto Spagnoletti, in Storia della Letteratura italiana del Novecento, cit..
Poems translated by Luigi Bonaffini
El tuo remoto fondo
Dòna che sei sovrana
d'un mondo che no' esiste,
io so 'n arboro triste
'nt'un spechio de fontana.
El tuo remoto fondo
è dietro la mia imagine.
Io so' 'l ciglio del mondo
e te sei la voragine.
da E per un frutto piace tutto un orto
Your Faraway Abyss
Woman who are the queen
of a world that can't be,
I am a disheartened tree
in a fountain's screen.
Your profound abyss
lies behind my image.
I am the world's edge
and you're the precipice.
Carcere demolito
Com colpi d'aceta
sprofòndane tre mure
framezo ortighe scure
de sopra la breceta;
'na faccia de cemento
d'indòve el filspinato
se driza intorcinato
le fa da sbaramento
e 'n cancelo de legno
con lucheto e catena
(el verdeto e la pena
che se delma a congegno)
Co' la demolizió
esta chioga quadrata
sortì come schiodata
da 'na maledíziò
de sbare e schiavardà,
d'aria fissa e de ronde,
de ore fate imonde
da la cattività.
O raza de Caì,
fadigatora al chiuso,
vedevi alzando el muso
le sòle ai segondì.
Carcere demolito: il carcere anconitano di Santa Palazia, rimasto gavemente danneggiato
nel terremotodel 1972 e successivamente abbattuto: se delma; si modella; chioga: buca, sterro.
II
In piedi su lo stero
solo Santa Palazia
che sona come strazia
la lima sopra 'l fero
Sibene la faciata
sia tuta 'n'armatura
resiste a la ventura
'sta chiesa disgraziata
indove per mestiere
la gerarchia dei bagni
portava a pulì i pagni
de le le pegore nere.
Sbatute sopra el scoio
del Guasco, pòre vite
mai non sortì pulite
però dal lavatoio,
ce rinforzò la ghigna,
anzi, se perse al bè
c'a sopravive c'è
solo 'n mezo, la tigna.
Su 'l spazio in abandono
c'è fiore de la malva.
Se vive non ne salva
murì basta al perdono.
Guasco: colle storico di Ancona, su cui sorge la cattedrale di San Ciriaco: il carcere si elevava a breve distanza.
III
Io so che 'na buiosa
è tuto 'l vive d'omo
però guardo sul domo
volà i cucali rosa.
Arisalì la rupe
tremenda del cagó
'ndove ingozò un papó
de pesci e d'acque cupe.
Zompati oltre le merde
de la necesità
va de soavità
incontro al mare verde
e grida de sarcasmo
contro chi 'rmane avinto
drento il suo labirinto
de paura e d'orgasmo.
Pudéssimo andà sciolti
(no solo in sepoltura)
da colpe e da catura
'ndò ce semo rinvoltì.
Sopra el nuvolo erto
sempre 'l spazio è infìnito.
Carcere demolito,
al principio è 'l deserto.
Buiosa: carcere; cucalì: gabbian; cagó: cloaca; papó: zuppa dei poveri.
da So' rimaso la spina, 1977
Demolished Prison
As if felled by ax blows
three walls crash and settle
amid the darkish nettles
over the gravel rows.
A concrete fence
where the barbed wire
rises in a twisted spire
is its sole defense
and a wooden entrance
with chain and safety
(the verdict and penalty
modeled on a contrivance)
With the demolition
this square hole in the ground
came out as if unbound
from a malediction
of bars and deadlocks,
of rounds and stale air,
and hours of despair
inside the cell blocks.
O Cain-begotten souls,
workers in the jug,
you saw raising your mug
only your keepers' soles.
II
Santa Palazia alone
stands over the pile
sounding like a file
rasping over stone.
The old facade, once great,
is braced up, in decline,
but this dejected shrine
is still resisting fate
where to earn their keep
the baths' hierarchy
went to wash the laundry
of all the black sheep.
Beaten on the bluff
of Guasco, lives nevergreen,
they never came out clean
from the washing-trough,
it made them yet more dour
totally lost to virtue
the one way to pull through
is being mangy and sour.
Over the abandoned emptiness
the mallow is in bloom.
If living's bound for doom
dying brings forgiveness.
III
I know that in the pokey
a man's life passes by
I see pink seagulls fly
over the high belfry.
To reascend the bitter
incline of the cesspool
where he downed a gruel
of fish and muddy water.
Jumping over the wide
dungheap of necessity
they go effortlessly
toward the green tide
and shout out their mockery
of those people who're always
crushed inside their maze
of fear and misery.
If we could just shake loose
(not only in the grave)
from all the guilt, the slavery
wrapped tighter than a noose.
Over the steep cloud band
space reaches to infinity.
O prison in your debris,
first there is the wasteland
Carta laniena
No brolo per me fíolo
fondo de la realtà
'ntra gialli de vaiolo
muri, for de cità -
i bandoni col. stema
cranio de bove a gesso,
segno fato patema
a mentovà l`istesso.
Oemme in mezo ai schiopi
de la carburazió
dietro le fole dei piopi
scarince (pel stradó
frate in cime. a le bande
d'immacolti corni
drento a 'n fortore grande,
de piscio a lumi alborni).
Passagio de stretoia
pel marchìo e per la pesa
de soto 'na tetoia
da carena in discesa,
e tuto in compimento
usuale de strage
El sangue sul cemento,
fume suspeso in brage.
Carta laniena: voce latina che sta per "macelleria" e "lacerazione"; oemme: O.M.' fabbrica di autocarri; brolo: giardinetto; scarince: ingiallite; alborno: chiaro come l'alba.
II
In mezo campo arato
el nudo matatoio
(come p'un desolato
mare punta de scòio)
da glossa de lunario
arvisto ricorente
in bordo a calendario
ciarma de le turmente.
A l'ora de lo sbando
per fiato ocasionale
d'indove come e quando,
el vitelo virtuale.
Pei lòghi de suplizio
da le boteghe care
andati (e in benefizio
le poghe robe spare)
abrevi streti in ghiomo
de storia e alegoria
- omo inbrancato, omo
piombato in ferovia
fino a piazale breve
eterno (stazió finte
i merci su la neve
spariti sbufi e spinte).
Glossa de lunario: allude alle fasi della luna simbolizzata sul calendario; ciarma: tatuaggio, incisione; abrevi: ebrei; ghiomo: gomitolo.
III
Tuta t'ha traversata
stanote, via de morte,
vita, la bandonata
de vechio ombra de sorte
con el glu glu de gola
da verso de picioni
- aborti de parola
- 'ntra sordi cornicioni,
e l'aria trasmeteva
lumi come cerase
a la sua angoscia abreva
'nt'un trasmestà de case
(forme. de l'esistenza
comune, dolce modo,
sgramate a la violenza
come intonaco a chiodo).
La primordiale tara
del vive: sortì al niente,
pesci per la bogara
sul fil de la corente,
omini soto al giallo
astro de l'agonia
spinti da dietro al vallo
dei persi - in atonia.
Bogara: rete da pesca tesa alla foce dei fiumi; giallo/astro de l'agonia: allusione alla stella dí Davide cucita sui panni degli ebrei.
da Carta laniena, 1982
Abattoir
I
No garden for me son, low
underside of reality
amid the smallpox-yellow
walls outside the city
emblazoned metal frames
plaster-chiseled ox skull
when mentioning the same
a sign to make you mournful.
O.M. mid the barrage
of the motors' refrain
behind the yellow leafage
of poplars (in the wide lane
bushes atop the trench
of horns gleaming white
amid the foul stench
of piss in dawn-bright light).
For branding and for weighing
a very narrow arcade
underneath the roofing
like a keel on a downgrade
And all for the enactment
of the usual massacre..
Blood over the pavement,
smoke hanging over ember.
II
The naked abattoir
in a plowed field seems to be
the top of a sandbar
in a desolate sea
like an almanac's reminder
you can see running downwards
on the edge of a calendar,
etching of blizzards.
At the time of the row
through an occasional
breath, when where and how
the calf becomes virtual.
Taken from the shops they loved
to the place of their agony
(the little stuff they had
given away to charity)
Jews squeezed in a skein
of history and allegory
- man in a pack, man fallen
onto a railroad lorry
as far as the short depot,
eternal (fake stations,
the freight trains on the snow
huffing and pushing gone.
III
Tonight, desolate,
road of death and life,
the shadow of the old man's fate
went through you like a knife
with the throaty glu glu of birds,
like pigeons' noises
- aborted words
among deaf cornices,
and the air would relinquish
cherry-like glimmerings
to his Jewish anguish
mid a bustle of buildings
(forms of common existence,
sweet ways,
scarred by violence
like plaster by nails).
Life's primordial defect:
coming out to nix
fish caught in the net
on the edge of the flux,
men underneath the yellow
star of agony
pushed from behind the furrow
of the lost - in atony.
Compatta, senza falle,
gioia de quel Natale
(su la campagna el scialle
d'un silenzio inusuale):
la gran chioma canuta
de Ida, la romanza
che ognì volta fa muta
la famiglia, fragranza
de più linde, cucine,
ferri culor cerasa
de le stufe, vetrine
lustre in tuta la casa,
e l'ndugio dei. fìoli,
rossi, al gelo, sudati,
prima de pranzo, voli
de passeri assiepati
presso le porte a vetri
dopo tiri de fìonda.
I arbori spoi, non tetri,
dove el vallato affonda.
C'era la polveriera
de fianco a la collina
(imaginai la nera
forza de la rovina
o sui tetti incolori,
in cima a la sorpresa
dei botti, i grandi fiori
de la polvere acesa).
Ma prima, el sito vile:
latrati morituri
d'un presago canile
dietro a sportelli impuri.
Come una cateratta
su un arioso orizonte
stava la mura sfatta
del forte, dopo el ponte
sul fosso de le ortighe.
Poi la porta sovrana
s'oprì 'ntra insegna antighe:
la cità litorana.
da El SOL, 1995
Compact, without a hole,
joy of that Christmas once
(over the fields the shawl
of unusual silence):
Ida's head great and hoary
the family as always
listening to the story,
speechless, the bouquets
from the clean kitchen,
the cherry-hued iron
tongs of the stoves, the glisten
of windows at every turn,
and the children that dally
in the cold, sweating, red,
before dinner, the sally
of sparrows outspread
next to the glass doors
after the slingshot rips.
The bare trees' contours,
not grim, where the valley dips.
A powder-magazine
on the side of the hillock
(in my mind's eyes I had seen
the black power of havoc
or on the drab rooftops loom
on the surprise of the loud
explosions, the great bloom
of the burning gunpowder).
But first, the ghastly grounds:
morituri that bay
in a foreboding pound
behind an impure gateway.
Like a waterfall
over an airy ridge
stood the crumbing wall
of the fort, after the bridge
on the nettles' trenchline.
Then the sovereign door
opened twixt ancient signs:
the city on the shore.