Virtual Memories Show 695:
Wallis Wilde-Menozzi
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“Her poetry — as with most Italian poetry — is dedicated . . . to addressing all that has previously been written as poetry.”
She’s been on the show to talk about her essays, novel, and memoir, and now Wallis Wilde-Menozzi gets to talk about translation! With Emerging from the Winter Sea: Selected Poetry and Prose (FSG Poetry), Wallis has translated a career-spanning collection by Antonella Anedda. We talk about her love of Anedda’s writing and how it led to their friendship, how Italian poetry addresses past poetry and changes in language, how the island of Sardinia stands in for the “I” in Anedda’s poems, and how Anedda chooses the world over herself (a la Kafka) and how her writing changes over the course of decades. We get into how Wallis tends to lose herself in the voice of the people she translates (which is why she’s resisted requests to be a writer’s official translator), the masked, genderless figure of the Componidori and how it corresponds to Anedda’s art-identity, how Anedda shows us reconciling ourselves to suffering and cruelty by associating it with someone else, and how Italian poetry’s ambiguity contrasts with American poetry’s “just the facts, ma’am” vibe. We also discuss These Times and how Wallis’ activism in the ’60s contrasts with today’s clicktivism, the new memoir she’s working on, how personal change can be like the discovery of dark matter, and more. Give it a listen! And go read Emerging from the Winter Sea!
“Anedda sees language as a historical reality, as something that is part of history, in a dialogue with society.”
“We’re mostly not what we are. The further we go, the more miraculous and strange and odd things become. Things we thought we knew, we don’t know.”
“I resist translating because I virtually give up most of my ego and try to hang on to what’s there on the page.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Wallis Wilde-Menozzi is the author of Mother Tongue, The Other Side of the Tiber, and Toscanelli’s Ray. Her poetry, essays, and translations have appeared in Granta, The Best Spiritual Writing, Words Without Borders, and Tel Aviv Review. A collection of her essays was published in Italian as L’Oceano e’ dentro di noi. She lives in Parma, Italy. Her most recent book is Silence and Silences.
Listen to our 2013, 2017, and 2022 conversations.
Antonella Anedda is an Italian poet, short-story writer, essayist, and translator. She was born in Rome to a Sardinian family in 1955. She is the author of nine books and the recipient of the prestigious Viareggio Prize for her 2012 collection of poetry, Salva con nome.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Palazzo Dalla Rosa Prati on Zoom H2n. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Wallis by me; photo of Battistero di Parma by me. It’s on my instagram.