Maarja Kangro

*** [Ukrainlannast põetaja]

Language: estonian

Translations: english (***[In a small town in the Italian Alps]), italian (***[In una piccola città nelle Alpi]), norwegian (*** [Ein ukrainsk sjukepleiar]), slovenian (***[V majhnem mestu v italijanskih Alpah])

*** [Ukrainlannast põetaja]

Ukrainlannast põetaja
seisab Itaalia Alpide väikelinnas
pargis magnooliate all.
On talv, rihma otsas kargleb
vana valge karvane koer.
Äkki hakkab ehmatavalt
valjusti lööma kirikukell.
Väike valge koer
hakkab haukuma,
ägedalt ja kõõksudes,
õhus aimdub rabandust.
Kirik ei jäta järele,
koer samuti mitte.
Õuduse amplituud suureneb.
Loom ja kirik
rebivad võidu
südamete rütme.
Keegi ei pane veel midagi tähele
pargis magnooliate all.
On on on on on on on

Translations:

Language: english

***[In a small town in the Italian Alps]

In a small town in the Italian Alps,
a Ukrainian nurse
stands under magnolias in a park.
It's winter, and an old, shaggy,
white dog is pulling at the leash
when a clang stuns the air
as a churchbell starts to ring.
The small white dog
starts to bark,
fiercely, with rasping breath.
„Heart attack“ vibrates in the air.
The church won't stop,
neither will the dog.
The volume of horror increases.
Like rivals
animal and church
tear at the hearts´ rhythms.
And nobody notices anything yet
in the park under the magnolias.
Now now now now now now now

Language: italian

***[In una piccola città nelle Alpi]

In una piccola città nelle Alpi,
una badante ucraina
si ferma al parco sotto le magnolie.
È inverno, e al guinzaglio
saltella un cane bianco, vecchio e peloso.
All'improvviso le campane
della chiesa iniziano a suonare,
spaventano con l'intensità.
Il piccolo cane bianco
inizia ad abbaiare,
ferocemente, soffocando,
nell'aria si sente un infarto.
La chiesa non smette,
nemmeno il cane.
L'amplitudine dell'orrore cresce.
L'animale e la chiesa
strappano a gara
i ritmi dei cuori.
Di niente di particolare ci si accorge ancora
al parco sotto le magnolie.
È è è è è è è

Language: norwegian

*** [Ein ukrainsk sjukepleiar]

Ein ukrainsk sjukepleiar
står i den vesle italienske alpebyen
i parken under magnoliar.
Det er vinter, i band
står ein gammal kvit hund og bykser.
Brått og skremmande
høgt set ei kyrkjeklokke i å slå.
Den vesle kvite hunden
set i å gøy,
kraftig og hikstande,
i lufta kryp hjarteatakk.
Kyrkja vil ikkje gi seg,
heller ikkje hunden.
Det grufulle aukar i amplitude.
Dyret og kyrkja
rykkjer i kapp
i hjarterytmene.
Og enno legg ingen merke til noko
i parken under magnoliane.
No no no no no no no

Language: slovenian

***[V majhnem mestu v italijanskih Alpah]

V majhnem mestu v italijanskih Alpah
ukrajinska bolniška sestra
stoji v parku pod magnolijami.
Zima je. Star, kodrast, bel pes
vleče povodec.
Zvonjenje cerkvenih zvonov
zadoni skozi zrak.
Majhen, bel pes
začne silovito lajati,
od tega se kar duši.
Nevarnost v zraku.
Cerkev ne odneha,
pes pa tudi ne.
Jakost groze narašča.
Kot rivala
žival in cerkev
kradeta ritme človeških src.
V parku pod magnolijami
nihče ni še nič opazil.
In in in in in in in

Maarja Kangro

photo © Lilian Merila

* 20.12.1973, Tallinn, Estonia
lives in: Tallinn, Estonia

Maarja Kangro was born in Tallinn, on December 20, 1973, where she currently lives. She has published collections of poetry, children's books, collections of short stories, and a novel. In 2011, a collection of her poems, La farfalla dell’irreversibilità (The Butterfly of No Return) was published in Italian. Apart from Italian, her poems and short stories have been translated for example into English, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovene, Swedish, and Udmurt.

Among other prizes, she has won the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s Literary Award for poetry (for Heureka, in 2009) and prose (for Ahvid ja solidaarsus, in 2011), being so far the youngest author who has won this award in both categories.

Maarja Kangro writes literary criticism and essays and has written opera librettos, texts for cantatas and other works of music. She has translated fiction, philosophy (Giorgio Agamben, Umberto Eco, Gianni Vattimo) and poetry by more than 100 poets (e.g. Jacopone da Todi, Giacomo Leopardi, Andrea Zanzotto, Valerio Magrelli, Philip Larkin, Bertolt Brecht, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Ernst Jandl). In 2003 she won the first prize in the Società Dante Alighieri competition for translations of Italian poetry.

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