The Dragonfly: a celebration in entirety

Fri Jun 09 2023 at 07:00 pm to 09:30 pm

Hugo House | Seattle

Margin Shift Collective
Publisher/HostMargin Shift Collective
The Dragonfly: a celebration in entirety
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Italian poet Amelia Rosselli's The Dragonfly (Entre Rios, 2023) in a new translation by Deborah Woodard and Roberta Antoginni
About this Event

Experience Italian poet Amelia Rosselli's The Dragonfly (Entre Rios, 2023) in a new translation by Deborah Woodard and Roberta Antoginni— presented in its entirety. Many of Seattle's experimental writers and musicians will present this troubled and troubling text in word, music, and song— a tribute to Roselli, who was an accomplished musicologist.

A trilingual writer who described herself as “a poet of exploration,” Amelia Rosselli has only recently been recognized as one of the major European poets of the twentieth century. Born in Paris in 1930, she was the daughter of the martyred anti-fascist philosopher Carlo Rosselli and the British political activist Marion Cave. Raised in exile, in France, Switzerland, England, and the United States—in interviews, Rosselli remembered her years in the US with great fondness—she finally settled in Italy after the war, first in Florence and then in Rome. Except for a year she spent in London in the mid-seventies, Rosselli never left Rome, where, devastated after years of struggling with mental illness, she took her own life in 1996. The tragedy of her father’s death and the loss of her mother when she was only nineteen were central to Rosselli, defining her in many ways: from her “trilingual language” and cosmopolitan upbringing—though she thought of herself more as a refugee—to her political engagement and deep social consciousness. Rosselli was the author of eight collections of poetry (one, Sleep, in English), a translator of Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, among others, and an accomplished musicologist and musician who played the violin, the piano, and the organ. The Dragonfly was first published in its present format as the opening section of the collection Hospital Series (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1969).



La Libellula (The Dragonfly) is Amelia Rosselli’s acknowledged first major work and contains all the elements of her mature vision: trilingual wordplay, musicality, and political engagement. With its vertiginous propulsion and rotational structure, this single-long poem, a canto, hovers on the edge of the surreal, where meaning continually multiplies and then negates. The reader must engage her work as she instructs — intuitively. Her inventive refraction of Italian literary tradition sought a more authentic liberation, “in all the nation’s life, in all the dismal / boroughs, in all the putridous world, exists / just one me, exists just one you, — exists charity.” Now recognized as one of the most significant voices of post-war Europe, her visceral writing challenges the constriction of language as not only a fascist legacy but also as a critique of the banality and materialism of reconstruction.


Readers and Musicians will include:

Eric Acosta is an unpoet. When asked for a bio he replied, "Hola I am bio I was from a inside that by also called the I now in a in the all of the where I have the if sespadalian snout lid telepathic groon radiation" He emcees two monthly Unpoetry reading series at Underbelly and Bulldog News and his debut poetry collection is forthcoming this summer from Chat Rooms Books. Find more via at @bottle_meat , www.printcopiesavailable.com and http://unpoetry.net/.

E. Briskin lives in Seattle. E.'s book "Orange" was published on March 10, 2020.




Brian Dang (they/them) is a Vietnamese/Chinese playwright, poet, and teaching artist based in Seattle. They are a proud resident playwright at Parley and were a 2020-21 Hugo House Fellow. Their plays include This time (NPC Finalist 2022, Many Voices Fellowship Semi-Finalist 2022) and a white haunting (Princess Grace Fellowship Finalist, Upcoming production with MAP Theatre). Their writing has additionally been supported by 4Culture, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Centrum Foundation, and workshopped with Seattle Opera, Pork Filled Productions, Mirror Stage, Sound Theatre, Theatre Battery, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. They teach poetry/theatre with Writers in the Schools, Arts Corps, and more. They really like bread. Their current works in progress include "49 words I wish I could write in my family’s language," a poetry/letter collection supported through 4Culture and the 2022 Seattle CityArtist program. Check out their website at: https://www.brianeatswords.com/

Originally from Iowa City, Josh Fomon is a writer in Seattle. His book, Though we bled meticulously was published by Black Ocean in 2016. He writes about the internet at Ookla. He is currently the Co-President of the Board for Seattle City of Literature. Check out his website at: https://www.joshfomon.com/




Tanya Holtland is a poet and writer. She is author of the chapbook Inner River (Drop Leaf Press, 2016). Her eco-poetry collection Requisite (Platypus Press, 2020) was a finalist for the Broken River Prize and nominated for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her nonfiction, lyric essays, and other works appear in Poetry Northwest, The Offing, EcoTheo Review, The Rupture, The Wire’s Dream, Mary: A Journal of New Writing, and elsewhere. A graduate of San Francisco State University’s English and Creative Writing MA program, she was also an artist-in-residence at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford where she authored the libretto Fated, a collaboration with composer Daniela Candillari. A Los Angeles native of Dutch-Indonesian descent, her work surrounds the intersections of memory, ecology, healing, design, and matriarchy. Check out her website at: https://www.tanyaholtland.com/


Rachel Karyo’s writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Noctua Review, Lumina Online, RipRap, Cease, Cows, Liars’ League, Silent Auctions, Sand, and Belletrist. Her first chapbook, Sometimes at Parties,was recently released from dancing girl press. Rachel lives in Seattle.

Peter Nelson-King is a multi-instrumentalist, teacher and writer native to the Seattle area. A regular member of multiple large ensembles and private teacher at two schools, they also mount recitals and chamber concerts regularly and perform in poetry readings, endeavoring to bring Seattle's music and writing communities closer together.

Susan Payne O’Brien is deeply influenced by the rich theatrical landscape of the Chicagoland area where she works and resides. She trained as a director and performer under Byrne and Joyce Piven at the famed Piven Theater Workshop. Drawing upon her twenty year tenure as a teacher, performer and director at Piven and upon her years as an actress and opera singer Susan creates inventive work for the theater and opera stage. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Forte Chicago, an all female operatic company that devises new work pushing the boundaries of the female voice. Since Forte’s launch in 2015 it has premiered five full length original devised shows exposing fresh audiences to the possibilities and delight of opera. Susan is passionate about bringing theatrical devising process to opera classrooms and has served on the directing and opera faculties of Roosevelt University, DePaul University and North Park University. She has directed, written and devised shows for The Piven Theater Lab, Black Cat Theater, 2nd Story, Links Hall, The Santa Fe Opera, The El Paso Opera, Artemesia, and the CUBE Ensemble. Check out her website at: https://susanpayneobrien.com


Dell Wade has composed over 200 compositions. His music has been performed over the past 50 years by the Northwest Symphony, Seattle Philharmonic, Thalia Symphony, Highline Orchestra, Vashon/Maury Chamber Orchestra, Boeing Orchestra of Flight, Premeditated Strings, PLU Symphony, Hildman Strings, Jazz Police, Centerpiece Jazz Band, Joyce Rameë, Max Aronoff Viola Institute and the Cathedral Trio. In Spring of 2022 he conducted the premiere of his 14th symphony with the Haydn and Beyond Workshop. As a conductor he has been associate conductor of the Rainier Symphony, Vashon/Maury Chamber Orchestra, Boeing Orchestra of Flight, Cub Scout Pack 360 Balloon Orchestra, Premeditated Strings and the Haydn Workshop (Music Center of the Northwest). In the fall of 2021 he was brought on the faculty of Music Center and combined Premeditated Strings and the Haydn Workshop into the Haydn and Beyond Workshop. As a jazz bassist he plays in the Pamelagrace Band, Colletivo, MC2, Blue Notes and the North Seattle Jazz Orchestra.

Anthony Warnke’s poetry has appeared in Cimarron Review, North American Review, Salt Hill, Sentence, Sixth Finch, and Sugar House Review, among other journals. He also publishes scholarly work promoting access and equity at two-year colleges. He earned his Master’s degree in English from Western Washington University and is currently enrolled in the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Washington, Seattle. He teaches writing at Green River College and lives with his spouse in Seattle, where he co-facilitates the Columbia City Writing Circle.

Deborah Woodard holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and a PhD from the University of Washington. She is the author of Plato’s Bad Horse (Bear Star Press, 2006), Borrowed Tales (Stockport Flats, 2012), and No Finis: Triangle Testimonies, 1911 (Ravenna Press, 2018). Her chapbook Hunter Mnemonics (hemel press, 2008) was illustrated by artist Heide Hinrichs. She has translated Amelia Rosselli with Giuseppe Leporace in The Dragonfly: A Selection of Poems: 1953– 1981 (Chelsea Editions, 2009) and with Roberta Antognini in Hospital Series (New Directions, 2015), Obtuse Diary (Entre Ríos Books, 2018), The Dragonfly (Entre Rios Books, 2023), and Notes Scattered and Lost (Entre Rios Books, forthcoming 2024). Woodard teaches at Hugo House in Seattle and co-curates the reading series Margin Shift.


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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Hugo House, 1634 11th Avenue, Seattle, United States

Tickets

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