Author Description

Poetry. Translated from the Italian by Michael Palma. NO PART TO PLAY is a bilingual selection from eight collections of verse: Il disperso / The Missing (1976), Le meraviglie dell'acqua / The Wonders of Water (1980), Glenn (1982), Donna del gioco / Mistress of the Game (1987), Poesia della fonte / Poetry of the Source (1993), L'ultimo viaggio di Glenn / Glenn's Last Journey (1999), Per un secondo o un secolo / By a Second or a Century (2003) and Vite pulvicolari / Dusty Lives (2009). "Cucchi's poetry is notable for its even tone, its avoidance of stylistic excess and rhetorical extravagance... His preference is to let descriptions, and their juxtapositions, speak for themselves, without preaching or hectoring, without pointing a moral or adorning a tale. Like Eliot's The Waste Land], Cucchi's work includes such characteristics as historical references, literary allusions and quotations, and the intermingling of these elements with disturbing personal experiences. Another central point of contact is each poet's procedure through an accretion of fragments, creating a kaleidoscope of scenes and incidents and a medley of shifting voices." from the Introduction by translator Michael Palma "Cucchi's poetry posed and poses the problem of the friction between autobiography and impersonality, between concealment and exposure, between lyrical writing and narrative modes, between realism and oneiric vision, between a renunciative and nihilistic inclination and a positive and ethical vocation, between, better still, a private and solitary numbness and an epical determination for ordinary life." Alba Donati"