Daniele Pantano
MAMIHLAPINATAPEI
1.
[“they’re seated. and earned their degrees in art history. they walk toward the dimly lit
corridor”]
2.
[“in other words, the logic of small satisfactions mobilizes its subjects toward a critique of our return to the old and new conditions of production. there’s always a true enemy, a secretary who knows about the difficult work of changing a light bulb”]
1.
[“revolutionary change, thousands of cardboard domes, mutilated bodies, spontaneous echoes and outbursts, smoking or drinking, to limit, to stand up, something that happens to those in the know, guilty and starving, what is money actually the root of, this performance, this property, these charges further confirmed, some hidden message, return to normal, sudden attacks, a to b”]
2.
[“i sleepwalk the benzedrine dogs and return home empty-handed. i asked if he could have a few words with me, i mean literally. i’m thinking of the way showing no sign of emotion halts the trains in their tracks––or makes them drown in the inhaler’s patented blue”]
1/2.
[“it is this that hinders the passerby from complete surrender. the iron cast sculpture in the yard. the swing, garbage cans, barking dogs. the image of giant worms consuming your life. but your legs won’t halt. driven by a madness that grows out of the television screen. they continue to run without discretion. without hesitance”]
Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet and literary translator. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared widely, and his poems have been translated into several languages, including Albanian, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Kurdish, Russian, Slovenian, and Spanish. His most recent works include Kindertotenlieder: Collected Early Essays & Letters & Confessions (Hesterglock Press, 2019), Robert Walser: Comedies (Seagull Books, 2018), ORAKL (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), Robert Walser’s Fairy Tales: Dramolettes (New Directions, 2015), and Dogs in Untended Fields: Selected Poems by Daniele Pantano (Wolfbach Verlag, 2015). Pantano taught at the University of South Florida (where he was also Director of the Writing Center), served as the Visiting Poet-in-Residence at Florida Southern College, and directed the creative writing programme at Edge Hill University, where he was Reader in Poetry and Literary Translation. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Programme Leader for the MA Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. For more information, please visit www.pantano.ch.