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Piera Oppezzo (1934–2009) seemed elusive and mysterious to all who encountered her. Born in Turin, she lived her first years during fascist dictatorship, war-time devastation, and postwar deprivation. She was from the working class, and her first job, which she hated, was as an apprentice in a dress-making workshop. Remarkably, she became a major poet without ever going to high school or university.
In those postwar years, Turin was largely composed of the bourgeoisie, including the intelligentsia, and the proletariat, notably the masses of workers in the colossal Fiat automobile factories. Piera bridged the gap between these two worlds. She found a job as a typist at RAI, the Italian national radio and television network, based in Turin. RAI presented serious cultural programming and thus attracted some of the country’s best artists and thinkers to the city.
The great writer Italo Calvino, who was an editor at the prestigious Einaudi publishing company in Turin, and its publisher, Giulio Einaudi, discovered Piera’s work and found it intriguing, unclassifiable. In 1966 they published her first book, L’uomo qui presente (Man Here Present), in Einaudi’s Poesia collection, which included at that time only the work of major poets—Shakespeare, Coleridge, Melville, Yeats, Akhmatova, Beckett, Brecht. Over the next decades, five more books of her poetry and two novels would be published.
Piera was drawn to Gertrude Stein’s novella Three Lives, published in New York in 1909, and translated into Italian by the great writer Cesare Pavese and published by Einaudi in 1940. The three tales (“The Good Anna,” “Melanctha,” and “The Gentle Lena”) that comprise Three Lives are about working-class women in Baltimore who are alienated from their environment. “Melanctha,” the longest of the three, deals with the daughter of a Black father and a mixed-race mother. Motivated by a deep longing for wisdom, Melanctha engages in emotional battles in her search for a role in life as a woman and as a woman of color.
In her long, seven-part poem, Le strade di Melanctha, which Piera began writing in 1979 and which was published as a book in 1987, Piera and Melanctha are two voices that often become one, as they struggle to define themselves, their needs, their position in a world ruled by men.
This translation of Part I of The Ways of Melanctha is the first appearance of this important work in English.
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Le strade di Melanctha
“E così Melanctha andava errando sull’orlo della saggezza.”
—Gertrude Stein
L’AUTRICE:
Melanctha si dice “stanca di parole”. Melanctha parla e si parla ininterrottamente sottintendendo, ripetendo che “il silenzio è un contenitore”. A volte pare intenda il silenzio come pausa, altre come risonanza perfetta di un modo d'essere “non completabile”, “solo possibile”. Il possibile le “circola dentro”, è costitutivo del suo modo di stare e la ragione del suo “non fermarsi per andare”.
Dice e si contraddice, quando invece vorrebbe — tacendo — “unire le cose nella mente”. In certi casi “la voce le viene troppo intensa”, tuttavia ci sono momenti in cui “modula pianissimo” — quasi un silenzio. Ma subito dopo si lancia in invettive totali, veri e propri eventi acustici, come farebbe una randagia nel corso del suo vagabondare.
Infatti “si può vagabondare sempre”, e proprio per restare più prossimi a qualcosa “che non smette mai di nascere”. Che cosa? Qualcosa dentro di sé? All'esterno? E' probabile che Melanctha pretenda di annullare questa distinzione mentre ancora e “ancora pronuncia parole”... E altre parole ci sarebbero per parlare di Melanctha. Melanctha persona-Melanctha poemetto. Resta però fermo che la parola (e la poesia) è sempre solo indicativa di quanto non si dice.
I. “Melanctha non vagabondava ancora continuamente, ma ricominciava a sentire un poco il bisogno di cercare.”
Ma dove vai
l'interroga qualcuno
tollerante la voce ordinata
distraendola da se stessa lei
riconoscendo un po' tutte le presenze
dolcemente
con tono pacato
così come le viene la voce
vado da qualche parte sussurra
come Melanctha sono io
ho sempre avuto un forte bisogno d'andare
Melanctha decisa eccitata con
nella testa un continuo batter d'ali
vagabondava
rientrando la sera
si può vagabondare sempre
anche chiudendo la porta di casa
non è vero che non c'è nessuno
ci sono io ho capito
mi state inseguendo
dice a qualcun altro che insiste per sapere
Melanctha siamo d'accordo
il nostro itinerario non va poi
così lontano
ci circola dentro
quello che ho sempre desiderato
non ricordo veramente ma
va verso il centro lì
ho tante cose da dirmi
neanche si può immaginare
si confida lei
coprendosi meglio con qualcosa
la vostra stagione è l'inverno
vedo bene che il gelo non confonde io
non sono chiara lo so
ho freddo ma dentro
sono così sudata rimescolata
non posso dare risposte precise
ogni volta continuò
mentre nessuno credeva di fare domande
sì ho paura
questo non cambia niente di me
avvertì poi sorridendo a
qualcuno già rassicurato
voglio dire disse
non c'è nessuno in nessun posto
Melanctha lo sai
in posti come questi cosa chiedere per
chiedere ancora no
non mi offrite vere domande
e neppure un po' di caldo silenzio
riprese aprendo le braccia
come per abbracciare qualcuno
stringere forte
proprio
così
sì m'accorgo d'avere il
cuore in gola
ma a voi manca il respiro
già prima dell'emozione come mai?
s'informò riprendendo a saltellare
così come le viene il passo
impaziente poco controllato
c'è poco tempo ma ho fretta
devo andare più in là
oltre questi muri indicò
vagamente trasalendo per un fiore
che le viene offerto
certo
l'amore è una scorciatoia
è lì che vorrei fermarmi
voglio dire mettermi al riparo
continuò poi coccolandosi i petali qui
cadono gocce di rugiada
avete presente come sono gonfie
e queste dita
umide
sentite
io faccio scorrere su tutto un corpo
e adesso mi state distogliendo
gridò a una folla che minacciava
quando l'aveva quasi percorso tutto
sì mi sdraio
vicino vorrei
che non avessimo freddo
il sole qui non c'è continuò ancora
ma c'è dappertutto
se bene o male ce l'hai dentro
come unico tesoro
può sciogliere tutto
Melanctha è capitato anche a te
mentre andavi
disse rivestendosi in fretta
da questa parte non c'è saggezza
sono convinta io
mi aggiro sempre con tutta me stessa
anche adesso con lui
stava quasi arrivando fino a me
lo so non succede
è solo possibile
concluse scegliendo d'allontanarsi
addirittura scomparendo
per via dell'esplosioni
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The Ways of Melanctha
“And so Melanctha wandered on the edge of wisdom.”
—Gertrude Stein
THE AUTHOR:
Melanctha says she is “tired of words.” Melanctha ceaselessly talks to herself while repeating that “the silence is a container.” At times it seems she interprets the silence as a pause, at other times as the perfect resonance of a way of being that is “not completable” but “only a possibility.” The possible is what “circulates within,” is a constituent of her way of being and the reason for her to “never stop going.”
She talks and contradicts herself while, by being silent, she would like to “unite things in my mind.” Sometimes “she hears her voice becoming too intense,” but there are moments when “it modulates to pianissimo”—almost a silence. Soon after though she unleashes absolute tirades, actual acoustic events, as she wanders like a homeless woman.
In fact “one can always wander,” just to stay closer to something “that never stops being born.” What is that something? Is it inside oneself? Outside? Melanctha might expect to cancel this distinction at the same time as she is “still saying words” over and over again... And other words could be used to talk about Melanctha. Melanctha person–Melanctha little poem. The fact remains that words (and poetry) are always just an indication of what is not being said.
I. “Melanctha did not yet always wander, but a little now she needed to begin to look for others.”
But where are you going
someone asks her
the voice tolerant precise
taking her mind off herself she
acknowledging a little bit all the presences
sweetly
peacefully
that’s how her voice seems
I am going somewhere she whispers
like Melanctha I am
I have always had a strong need to move
Melanctha fierce excited with
a constant flapping of wings in her head
kept wandering
returning in the evening
one can always wander
even when closing the front door
it isn’t true that there is no one there
I am there I have understood
you are following me
she says to someone else who insists on knowing
Melanctha we agree
our itinerary doesn’t go
far away
it circulates within
what I have always desired
I truly don’t remember but
it moves toward the center there
I have so many things to tell myself
one can hardly imagine
she confides
pulling up something to better cover herself
your season is the winter
I realize the cold does not upset you I
am not being clear I know
I feel cold but inside
I’m so sweaty stirred up
I can’t give precise answers
each time she continued
though no one felt they could ask questions
yes I’m afraid
but that changes nothing about me
she warned smiling at
somebody already reassured
I mean she said
there is no one anywhere
Melanctha you know
in places like these what to ask if
you have to ask again no
you are not offering me real questions
or even a bit of friendly silence
she continued opening her arms
as if to hug someone
to hold them tight
like
this
yes I realize that my
heart is in my throat
but you can hardly breathe
even before the emotion why is that?
she asked beginning to skip around again
like this her pacing
impatient a bit out of control
there is a bit of time but I’m in a hurry
I must move farther away
beyond these walls she pointed to
jumping slightly because a flower
is offered to her
surely
love is a byway
it is where I would like to rest
that is to say to find refuge
she continued then cuddling the petals here
dewdrops fall
see how swollen they are
and these fingers
moist
feel
I let them glide all over a body
and now you are distracting me
she shouted at a mob that threatened
when she had almost gotten all the way
yes I lie down
nearby I would wish
that we be not cold
the sun is not here she continued
but it is everywhere
whether good or evil you have it within you
as your only treasure
it can melt everything
Melanctha it has happened to you too
while you were going
she said dressing in a hurry
over here there is no wisdom
I am sure I
always wander with all my being
even now with him
he was almost coming to me
I know it doesn’t happen
it’s only possible
she ended up choosing to leave
even disappearing
because of the explosions
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