Carlos Vitale (Buenos Aires, 1953) has a degree in Spanish Literature and Italian Literature. His books of poetry include Unidad de lugar, Descortesía del suicida, Cuaderno de l'Escala / Quadern de l'Escala, Fuera de casa, El poeta más crítico y otros poetas italianos and Duermevela. He has also translated many Italian and Catalan poets into Spanish: Dino Campana ( “Ultimo Novecento”, 1986 Translation Prize), Eugenio Montale (“Ángel Crespo”, 2006 Translation Prize), Giuseppe Ungaretti, Gerardo Vacana, Sergio Corazzini (Translation Prize from the Italian Foreign Ministry, 2003), Joan Vinyoli, Umberto Saba (“Val di Comino”, 2004 Translation Prize), Antonia Pozzi, Mario Luzi, Sandro Penna, Antoni Clapés, Joan Brossa, Josep-Ramon Bach, Antònia Vicens, etc. He has participated in festivals, readings and poetry events in Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Armenia, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, Estonia, Greece, Bulgaria and France. In 2015 he won the “VI Premio José Luis Giménez-Frontín” prize for his contribution to bringing together diverse cultures.

He has lived in Barcelona since 1981.

APPARITIONS

The sea, painted,

and the island

that  disappears,

not from memory

but from the moment.

LITANY

A new

life.

Another,

different one.

A life.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

Maybe you don’t remember,

and won’t remember,

what I don’t forget

don’t want to forget.

DELIVER ME

Deliver me from desire.

Deliver me from desire

that's unfulfilled;

from its useless decay

from its hollow misery.

RETURN

But you finally come back.

Either you never left.

Or I never left.

The fact remains, you’re here.

And I don’t know if I am.

English translation © 2018 Kymm Coveney