Carla Rossi
on translating Alda Merini
Through the poem “La Terra Santa,” Alda Merini speaks out against the unspeakable abominations of mental institutions. She compares asylums to the Christian Holy Land both are torn apart by suffering, horror, and loneliness. I think the biggest challenge when translating this poem was conveying in English the emotions triggered by the original. Apart from avello (a fancy word for “grave”), the words used in the Italian version are very straightforward, yet particularly evocative. Punctuation is used parsimoniously, making the words of the poem flow almost as if it were a stream of consciousness. I chose to keep my translation like the original, using punctuation only when strictly necessary.
I found the line where Merini defines herself and the other people at the asylum very interesting. She calls them branco di asceti (literally, “a pack of ascetics”), but compares them to birds. I wonder why Merini chose the word branco instead of stormo (“flock”), which better suits the bird analogy. Nevertheless, I chose to be loyal to the poet, keeping “pack of ascetics” instead of “flock.”
I love the lines where Merini writes “un pazzo / non può amare nessuno.” These words are so powerful, especially when taking into account the double negation normally used in Italian. Trying to render it literally in the translation process would completely break the rules of English grammar. Therefore, I had to choose between translating the line as “a madman / cannot love anyone” and “a madman / can love no one.” To me, the latter is more evocative than the former: it’s firm and sharp, and gives a clear-cut nuance to the idea conveyed by the poet.
“La Terra Santa” is a poem about those who have been forgotten, as well as the physical and psychological pain they suffered in psychiatric hospitals. As Merini writes, even after her resurrection, she still bears the marks of all the evil she experienced.
about the author
Alda Merini is one of the most appreciated female Italian poets of the twentieth century. She experienced the horrors of World War II in fleeing Milan, her hometown, to seek shelter in the countryside. She wrote that during the bombings she would hide in paddy fields because bombs would not explode in the water. However, WWII was not the worst she had to face in life. Her existence was torn apart by her mental illness — or more specifically, by the way mental illness was perceived during her time. In 1965, at the age of thirty-four, she was committed to a psychiatric hospital for the first time.
She drifted in and out of such asylums for the next fourteen years. A mother, she was taken away from her four daughters.While institutionalized, she experienced unspeakable tortures, of which she started writing after she finally returned home in 1979. Alda Merini is also remembered for writing aphorisms, and when I think of her, I always envision her smoking cigarettes — something she never gave up, even during her last days.
about the translator
Carla Rossi graduated with a degree in conference interpreting from the University of Bologna in Italy in 2017 after spending a semester at the University of Pennsylvania as an exchange student. She is still trying to find her place in the world. The only thing she knows is that she wants to keep learning English and possibly work in it. That’s why she recently completed her CELTA course, which enables her to teach English worldwide.
