So now I'll jump forward 100 years to a contemporary poet
from Rome named Patrizia Cavalli, who's
one of my favorite--
probably my favorite contemporary Italian poet,
and she's really popular in Italy, too.
She's extremely well known.
Her books sell an extraordinary number of copies,
by our standards, I think.
And she's actually even got a new album out of pop music
that she wrote the lyrics for and it
was set to music by a singer, an Italian singer,
and it's quite good.
She's famous for these short, kind of epigrammatic poems,
sometimes epigrammatic poems.
They're often kind of sexy or concerned with love or passion.
Sometimes they're more existential, or--
they do lots of interesting things,
and they do them very economically.
And I'll just read--
and they don't have titles, by the way,
the vast majority of them.
I don't think any of the ones I'm reading have titles,
so I'll read them.
Let's see-- how am I doing on time?
I'll just read them and read the translation.
I don't think there's anything you
need to know about this one.
This is an early poem of hers.
Per riposarmi mi pettino i capelli, chi ha fatto ha fatto e chi non ha fatto farà.
Dietro la bottiglia i baffi della gatta, le referenze le darò domani.
Ora mi specchio e mi metto il cappello.
Aspetto visite, aspetto il suono del campanello.
Occhi bruni, belli e addormentati.
Ma d'amore non voglio parlare, l'amore lo voglio solamente fare.
I comb my hair to unwind.
Ready or not, here I am.
Behind the bottle, the cat's whiskers.
I'll send off those references later.
I put on a hat, look in the mirror.
I'm expecting a visit, expecting the doorbell to ring.
Those sleepy, dark, lovely eyes, but no love talk.
I can't take it.
As for love, I just want to make it.
[LAUGHTER]