Mantis 22 (Summer 2024)
()bservations
B.A. van Sise
Vesuvio
Sono stato, ultimamente,
ossessionato dalle cose.
Ultimamente significa tutta la mia vita.
Ultimamente significa un diapason
vibrato contro un tavolo,
una cosa solida urtata
contro un’altra cosa solida
per diventare liquida nell’aria.
Per cose intendo l’odore
dei forni a legna.
Per cose intendo il suono
dei rondoni fuori dal
grigio appartamento dove,
sì, vivo ancora, nonostante
non dedichi altro che il pensiero a
una vita migliore. Per forni
intendo casa. Per rondoni
intendo te. Certe mattine
non riesco a respirare quando provo
a immaginare come potrei mai,
forse, vivere senza di te,
anche se lo faccio da anni.
Vesuvius
I have been, lately,
obsessing about things.
By lately I mean all my life.
By lately I mean a tuning fork
twanged against a table,
one solid thing thumped
against another solid thing
to then look liquid in the air.
By things I mean the smell
of wood burning ovens.
By things I mean the sound
of sparrows outside the
gray apartment where, yes,
I still live, despite giving
nothing but thought to a
better life. By ovens I
mean home. By sparrows
I mean you. Some mornings
I can’t breathe when I try
to imagine how I could ever,
possibly, live without you,
even though I’ve been
doing it for years.
Translated by Eleonora Foglia
B.A. VAN SISE is an author and photographic artist focused on the intersection between language and the visual image. He is the author of three monographs: the visual poetry anthology Children of Grass: A Portrait of American Poetry, Invited to Life: After the Holocaust, and the upcoming On the National Language: The Poetry of America’s Endangered Tongues. He has previously been featured in 254 Contributors solo exhibitions at the Center for Creative Photography, the Woody Guthrie Center, the Rockefeller Arts Center, the Center for Jewish History and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He has been a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize, the Travel Media Awards for feature writing, and the Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography. He is a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts Fellow in Photography, a Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation grant recipient, a Prix de la Photographie Paris award-winner, a winner of the Colonel Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards and the Lascaux Prize for Nonfiction, and an Independent Book Publishers Awards gold medalist. The son of an Italian mother of Tunisian and Libyan descent, he lives in New York City.
ELEONORA FOGLIA holds a classical studies degree, is currently an international jurisprudence student at the University of Naples, and is the poet, B.A. Van Sise’s long-suffering niece.