Anila Hanxhari

Anila Hanxhari was born in Durazzo (Albania) in 1974, and lives in Lanciano (Chieti). She has published the following collections of poetry: Io tu e l’anima, Assopita erba dell’est, Cicatrici d’acqua (with a preface by Giuseppe Conte) and Brindisi degli angeli/The Angel’s Toast “La vita Felice”(with a preface by M. Cucchi) . Her poetry also appears in the anthology "Nuovissima poesia italiana", edited by M. Cucchi and A. Riccardi, Mondadori, 2005 and La Stampa’s weekly magazine "Lo Specchio". She has won several poetry prizes including, Premio Camaiore-Proposta 2002, Premio "Matacotta", "Poesia nella vita" 2011, and many others. She has also participated in several literary festivals among which the San Benedetto International Poetry Festival in 2004 and the Mantova Festival in 2006. She is President of the “Italfida” Culture Association for which she has created and organised numerous art and literary exhibitions. Anila Hanxhari is also a painter and her works have been widely exhibited. Her latest novel (Maria delle caramelle) is due to be published.

Renzo D’Agnillo è Professore Associato presso l’Università “Gabriele D’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara. È l’autore di Bruce Chatwin: Settlers, Exiles and Nomads (Tracce 2000) e The Poetry of Matthew Arnold (Aracne, 2005). Le sue traduzioni più recenti comprendono Fuochi Rovesciati di Stefano Bolognesi (puntacapo, 2012) e liriche di vari poeti contemporanei italiani, alcune incluse nell’antologia Pescara Poesie del Mediterraneo (a cura di Stevka Smitran e Nicoletta di Gregorio, Tracce 2009).

Renzo D’Agnillo is Associate Professor of English Literature at the “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara. He is the author of Bruce Chatwin: Settlers, Exiles and Nomads (Tracce 2000) and The Poetry of Matthew Arnold (Aracne, 2005). His most recent translations include Fuochi Rovesciati by Stefano Bolognesi and poetry by various contemporary poets, some of which appear in the anthology Pescara Poesie del mediterraneo (edited by Stefka Smitran and Nicoletta di Gregorio, Tracce, 2009).

Love, like good and evil, love not as closed to the ego, but as an escape from the depths of consciousness. Love that moves the internal strings and those of the world around us. Love that is the earth, mother, son, life and death, but also love itself.

Love which the whole of existence rests upon. If we are fighting so much in the name of peace, what would peace be without love, what would man himself be without love?

If God is love, if nature is love, what is love? It is not that one expects to answer this impossible question, but to capture the essence of love that is in all of us like a wonderful gift...

L’amore è il brindisi degli angeli

L’amore è

Quando mi voltasti per riconoscere

Una bocca mangiata dall’attesa

L’amore è galleggiare sulla tua stessa lingua e venire a galla

Come una perla o un uovo saltato

È la testa di una formica che si nutre di noi

Come una spilla nera ci ferma il brivido

Poi ci succhia l’odore per morire sazia

E noi ci accorgiamo della mancanza

Del latte materno

L’amore è attraversare la donna la marcia la tinta

Dei fiori che crescono da una sola impronta

E rubare una rosa dalla gonna di cotone di tutte le donne

Volteggiandola sulla mia pelle umida e raggrinzita.

L’amore è senza gambe in autoreggenti

Anche i fiori muoiono dal gambo come l’amore

L’amore non ha neve ha il mio ventre

Che nevica in ogni domanda

Io premo contro la bocca e non bacio

Manco di labbra

L’amore è sbracciarsi e rimanere con il fiato nel sangue

Aspettare che la seduta sia il brindisi degli angeli

L’amore è possibile come un ala che si posa e si stacca

È cavalcare la possibilità diventare croce e ala

L’amore è la tua mano sul mio ventre

Che lascia l’acqua all’acqua

Separando ciò che è irrimediabilmente unito

L’amore sono i rami spogli

Quando l’albero è in piena stagione

La sostanza dell’occhio del cieco che fissa

L’anima e lo vince

L’amore è il grano del grido

Che ci restituisce la veglia del pane

È il sesso che trema un isolato

Dal falò delle dita senza gabbiani

L’amore è l’ora che te ne sei andato

Quando ti ho chiesto di amarmi

Se il palco fosse il ventre

E i cani che ringhiano di notte

                                                                                  Love is the Angels’ Toast

         Love is when you turned me around to recognize

                                                        A mouth eaten away by expectation

         Love is floating on your tongue and coming to the surface                                                                          

                                                        Like a pearl or a fried egg

                                                        It is the head of an ant that feeds on us

                                                        Like a black pin stops our thrill

                                                        And then sucks our smell to die fulfilled 

                                                        And we realize we miss

        Our mother’s milk

                                                        Love is travelling through a woman a march and the colour

                                                        Of the flowers growing from a single footprint

                                                        And stealing a rose from the cotton skirts of all the women

                                                        Twirling it on my moist and wrinkled skin.

                                                        Love is having legs in no stockings

                                                        Even flowers die from their stems like love

                                                        Love has no snow it has my belly

                                                        That snows with every question

                                                        I press to a mouth and do not kiss

                                                        I have no lips 

                                                       Love is waving your arms with your breath in your blood

                                                       Waiting for the session to be the angels’ toast

                                                       Love is possible like a wing that rests or takes off

                                                       It is riding the possibility becoming a cross and a wing

                                                       Love is your hand on my belly

                                                       That leaves water to the water

                                                       Separating what is irretrievably joined

        Love is the bare branches

                                                       When the tree is in full blossom

                                                       The substance of the blind man’s eyes that stare

                                                       At the soul and defeats it

                                                       Love is the corn of the cry

                                                       That gives us back the awakening of the bread

                                                       It is sex shaking a block of houses

                                                       From a bonfire of fingers without seagulls

        Love is the time you went away

                                                       When I asked you to love me

                                                       If the stage was the belly

                                                       And the dogs growling at night.

2)

Se intravedessi dal grembo

Come assopisce il suono dell’uomo

Si deve avere un luogo spoglio

Se duole la foglia eppure il gelo nel nevaio

E Dio veglia per lasciarmi libera da Lui

Dio

Non so se morire

È lo spartineve degli anni

Mentre libera la città

E accumula la neve sulla porta di casa

Il mestolo che stacca il cuore dal faro

S’intaglia come un flauto

Che sanguina gli alberi con un soffio

Si scava una tomba al mare con la bocca

Si rammenda di lividi di fiori

Che mi promettono in sposa

Se hai un occhio che sanguina Dio

E hai bisogno del pianto per purificare

Il luogo della rosa

Dimmi se urtare un sasso insieme sia l’amore

Dimmi se l’amore è passare il tempo a rincorrerci

Senza capire che il tempo è lì a tutte le ore

E noi occupati a salvare l’apparenza della neve

                                                                       If I could glimpse from my womb  

                                                                       How the sound of a man becomes sleepy

                                                                       You must have a bare place

                                                                       If the leaf suffers and yet the frost in the  

                                                                                                                                      snowfield

                                                                       And God keeps vigil to leave me free from him

                                                                       God

I don’t know if dying

                                                                       Is like the snow-plough of the years

                                                                       While the town is freed

                                                                       And snow piles up outside the front door

                                                                       The ladle that peels away the heart from the lighthouse

                                                                       Cuts like a flute

                                                                       That bleeds the trees in a puff

                                                                       A grave is dug by the sea with a mouth

                                                                       Bruises of flowers are stitched

            That promise me in marriage

                                                                       If you have an eye that bleeds God 

                                                                       And you need to cry to purify

                                                                       The place where the rose lies

                                                                       Tell me if bumping against a stone together is love

                                                                       Tell me if love is spending the time running after

                                                                                                                                          each other

                                                                       Without understanding that time is there at every hour

                                                                       And we are busy saving the surface of the snow

 3)

 Ti amo perché non è un problema tuo

arredare i miei occhi con le lacrime

quando la fiducia ha il nascondiglio

all’argine del cane

ti amo perché non si gioca con la libertà

quando il raccolto dell’età rende l’assenza

uomo annodato agli ormeggi

se l’amore è uno stormo di anni senza età

non so se non invecchiare fa bene

alla stagione della potatura

e se avere più anni fa l’immagine dello specchio più nitido

o se lo specchio con l’età sfuma di bianco la pupilla

e  rende l’amore cieco

ti amo perché me la cavo con l’orizzonte

che fuoriesce dalla luce

come un figlio mai dato

e le cravatte fuori sangue come rigurgido

per i tuoi pianti

quando aspetti al varco l’invincibile il cane

se il peccatore è il fuoriscena dei vinti

all’ultima cena del perdono

ti amo

e pareggi i conti

invecchiato come punto d’appoggio

perché se il ghiaccio è di troppo

che se la portino via le api

che se la facciano acqua per i prematuri

costretti a sognare Dio sui pavimenti aggiunti

che dividessero i tarli sotto la cassapanca

e mi lasciassero un punto sul gambo

perché io mi prendessi cura di te come dell’acqua

ti amo quando giochi ci sono o non ci sono

ed io inerme come le spighe di neve

ma io sono acqua che non si raccoglie

si arrotola come biglie di perle

all’insaputa del maltempo

ti amo perché tu mi ami

la libertà non è volare ad ogni costo

ma saper usare l’ala quando si è angelo

                                                                        I love you because it’s not a problem of yours

                                                                        To furnish my eyes with tears

                                                                        When trust has a hiding place

                                                                        At the dog’s embankment

                                                                        I love you because freedom must not be fooled with

                                                                        When the harvest of ages yields absence

                                                                        Man tied to the moorings

                                                                        If love is a flock of ageless years

                                                                        I don’t know if not growing old is a good thing

                                                                        To the pruning season

                                                                        And if getting older makes the mirror image clearer

                                                                        Or if the mirror fades the pupils to white with age

                                                                        And makes love blind                                                

                                                                        I love you because I can deal with the horizon

                                                                        That leaps out in the light

                                                                        Like a never given son

                                                                        And the neckties regurgitating blood

                                                                        Because of your cries

 When you wait at the opening for the invincible dog

                                                                        If the sinner offstage is one of the defeated

                                                                        At the last supper of forgiveness

                                                                        I love you

                                                                        And you settle the accounts

                                                                        Grown old like a foothold

                                                                        Because if there is too much ice

                                                                        Let the bees take it away

                                                                        Let them turn it into water for the premature

                                                                        Forced to dream of God on extra floors

                                                                        Let them share the woodworms  under the chest

                                                                        And leave me a point on the stem

                                                                        So that I can take care of you like the water

                                                                        I love you when you play at I’m here or I’m not here

                                                                        And I am helpless like ears of snow

                                                                        But I am water which cannot be drawn                        

                                                                        And rolls like balls of pearls

                                                                        Unbeknown to the bad weather

                                                                        I love you because you love me

                                                                        Freedom is not flying at any cost

                                                                        But knowing how to use wings when you are an

   angel.

4)

E non mi devi nulla quando te ne vai

 Non so se è la pioggia che s’identifica con le lumache

O se le lumache s’identificano con la pioggia

S’ingannano a vicenda

Abbiamo mai piantato le mani prima di tagliare i germogli

E sognato il melograno spento con gli occhi

Prima che la pioggia s’identifica con le lumache?

Andiamo alla ricerca di cose che pensavamo di volere

Ma abbiamo già lo stesso biglietto per la vecchiaia

Prima che il pc ci graffia gli occhi di bambino

Per gioco

E noi ci siamo quando l’autunno ci fa cadere dal tronco

Ci rivolgiamo la parola per indovinarci

E non mi devi nulla quando te ne vai

Se è vero che possiamo anche andare

Il miracolo dell’amore è osare

Essere possibili 

                                 And you don’t owe me anything when you go away

                                 I don’t know if it is the rain that identifies with the snails

                                 Or if the snails identify with the rain

                                 They deceive each other

                                 Have we ever planted our hands before cutting off shoots

                                 And dreamed of the dull pomegranate with our eyes

                                 Before the rain identifies with the snails?

                                 We go searching for things we thought we wanted

                                 But we already have the same ticket for our old age

                                 Before the pc scratches our baby eyes

                                 Just for fun

                                 And we are there when the autumn makes us fall from the trunk

                                 We talk to each other to guess each other

                                 And you don’t owe me anything when you go away

                                 If it is true that we can also go

                                 The miracle of love is daring

                                 To be possible