Patrizia Cavalli

How close do we dare to get to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? It’s widely considered the key to understanding who Jesus was and what mission he strove to fulfill. For two millennia, countless people have wrestled to apply it, from Augustine to Luther to Tolstoy to Gandhi. Alongside much wisdom, there has been much evasion, prompting Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide’s tart comment: “The history of the impact of the Sermon on the Mount can largely be described in terms of an attempt to domesticate everything in it that is shocking, demanding, and uncompromising, and render it harmless.” There’s good reason for this: Jesus’ teaching is deeply disruptive. It demands a top-to-bottom reordering of life, work, and social relations, starting with radical economic sharing, nonresistance and love of enemies, lifelong marriage, and unconditional forgiveness. This issue of Plough Quarterly focuses on people willing to get their hands dirty living out the Sermon on the Mount. Their ranks include Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Wesley, Henri Nouwen, Mother Teresa, and others you’ll meet in these pages. Their insights are not to be consumed passively. Rather, they should inspire and equip each of us to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Bold, hope-filled, and down-to-earth, Plough Quarterly features thought-provoking articles, commentary, interviews, short fiction, book reviews, poetry and artwork to inspire everyday faith and action. Each issue brings together essential voices from many traditions to give you fresh insights on a core theme such as peacemaking, biblical justice, children and family, building community, man and woman, nature and the environment, nonviolence, or simple living. Starting from the conviction that the teachings and example of Jesus can transform and renew our world, it aims to apply them to all aspects of life, seeking common ground with all people of goodwill regardless of creed.

Patrizia Cavalli skriver digte om hverdagen, selvet, kroppen, katte, byen, kærligheden. Det er underfundige, sensuelle, karismatiske digte, de er fulde af ømhed, sårbarhed og selvironi.Dette udvalg af oversætter Kirsten Nørgaard Cesareo rummer de bedste digte fra hendes debut i 1974 og til den sidste digtsamling der udkom i 2020. Det er første gang Patrizia Cavalli udgives på dansk.

"Diktene mine vil ikke forandre verden" beveger seg i det hypotetiske, det som er like før, på grensen til å inntreffe. Diktene er på en gang frakoblet og dypt personlige, som om jeget befinner seg på utsiden og samtidig betrakter verden innenfra. Cavallis diktning er både likefrem og elegant, ironisk og inderlig.

'Two hours ago I fell in love and trembled, and tremble still, and haven't a clue whom I should tell'From one of the truly singular and beloved poets of contemporary Italy, these are poems of the self, the body, pasta, cats, the city and - always, and above all - love. This volume is the first substantial gathering of the best of Patrizia Cavalli's work from her first six collections, from 1974 to 2006, translated by a selection of renowned poets. By turns thoughtful and sly, sensual and comic, charismatic and profound, these are works perfectly attuned to the pleasures and pains of everyday life and love.'The most intensely ethical poetry in Italian literature of the twentieth century' Giorgio Agamben 'Amazingly fresh and surprising. The world does change, in the telling' John AshberyEdited by Gini Alhadeff

At last, an ample English-language selection of one of contemporary poetry's most vibrant voices Any hall she has ever read her poetry in is invariably filled to the gills. Women like her, girls like her, and men like her, too. In Italy, Patrizia Cavalli is as beloved as Wistawa Szymborska is in Poland, and if Italy were Japan she'd be designated a national treasure. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben said of Cavalli that she has written "the most intensely 'ethical' poetry in Italian literature of the twentieth century." One could add that it is, easily, also the most sensual and comical. Though Cavalli has been widely translated into German, French, and Spanish, My Poems Won't Change the World is her first substantial American anthology. The book is made up of poems from Cavalli's collections published by Einaudi from 1974 to 2006, now freshly translated by an illustrious group of American poets, some of them already familiar with her work: Mark Strand, Jorie Graham, Jonathan Galassi, Rosanna Warren, Geoffrey Brock, J. D. McClatchy, and David Shapiro. Gini Alhadeff's translations, which make up half the book, are the result of a five-year collaboration with Cavalli. This edition includes the original Italian language poems alongside the English translation.