Correction: This morning's newsletter included an incomplete version of the poem. The full text appears below.
Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto
Translated from the Italian by Gabriella Fee and Dora Malech
The truth is names choose us
even before they're pronounced.
On the walls, at the curbs,
in the vases of carnations and hydrangeas,
in the lines of water that streak
the windows each morning, in
the laced-up shoes, on the buzzers
of doorbells, in the abandoned
stations. On everything a name
gathers. It shines from everything.

And one who flees names knows
that none escape being hailed,
that names tie knots
of truth cinched tight,
constricted syllables shaped
too tight to talk. Shaped to hurt.

The names that chose me
found no corners to illuminate.
Their meanings receded
as I dug into each
letter. I was looking for loopholes,
for arcana to examine
to make sense of myself.

I renounced them and with them
the arrogance of definition.
The foolishness of searching
words for truth.

The truth is reality
slept right under my nose,
buried in a mute heap
of names.  


[La verità è che i nomi ci scelgono]

La verità è che i nomi ci scelgono
prima ancora di pronunciarli.
Sulle pareti, a ridosso delle strade,
nei vasi di garofani e ortensie,
sulle strisce d'acqua che rigano
le finestre al mattino, sulle
scarpe allacciate, sui pulsanti
dei campanelli, nelle stazioni
in disuso. Su tutto si coagula
un nome. Tutto ne risplende.

E chi fugge dai nomi sappia
che non si sfugge alla nominazione
perché i nomi legano in nodi
di verità strette da calzare,
costringono in sillabe da pronunciare
a detti stretti. Da far male.

I nomi che mi hanno scelta
non trovarono angoli da rischiarare.
Cessarono presto i significati
mentre ero intenta a scavare in ogni
lettera. Speravo nelle eccezioni,
in costrutti arcani da indagare
per darmi un senso.

Ci rinunciai e con loro
all’arroganza della definizione.
All’insensatezza di attenersi
alle parole per vedere la realtà.

La verità è che la realtà
dormiva a un palmo dal naso
sepolta da un cumulo muto
di nomi. 
from the book DOLORE MINIMO / Saturnalia Books 
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Color photograph of Denver East High senior, Patrick Pethybridge, reciting his poem of unity for The Denver Gazette
"Denver East Student Poet Reclaims His Voice"

"When the Denver East High gunman started shooting on March 22, he didn’t just rob his classmates of their security and their freedom of movement. In a very real way, he also took their voices. Senior Patrick Pethybridge, 18, was moments away from reading a unity poem at a packed morning assembly when the school went on lockdown. A teacher issued the immediate, emphatic command: 'Silence!'"

via THE DENVER GAZETTE
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Cover of the issue of the journal Epiphany, in which "Rat" first appeared
What Sparks Poetry:
Karen Leona Anderson on "Rat"

"To write vermin is to ask then who makes them faceless and liquid, seething, scheming, malicious, too much, over and over; who feeds them and then turns away, repulsed. (Was it me? Of course.) It’s to ask who is at home, inside; who is outside. Why vermin are women’s fault and their shadow, their shame and their labor, how making vermin is so much work to do and undo and who that work is for."
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This April, to celebrate National Poetry Month, we'll share popular writing prompts from our "What Sparks Poetry" essay series each morning. Write along with us!
 
Choose a poem you like. Count the syllables in each line (if you have an ear for word stress, or a good dictionary, which will tell you which syllables in a word are stressed, locate the stressed syllables in each line as well). Write you own poem of the same length as the poem you have chosen, with the same syllable count in each line (and, if you have located the stressed syllables, with the stressed syllables in your lines in the same positions they occupy in the lines of the source poem), but, in each line, use none of the same words as are used in the corresponding line of the source poem, except for conjunctions, simple and double prepositions, and articles.
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