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<div>Spare Room presents a reading by<br>
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<div><b>Deborah Woodard (and others) to launch<br>
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<div><b><i>The Dragonfly / La Libellula </i>by Amelia Rosselli <br>
(translated by Roberta Antognini and Deborah Woodard)</b></div>
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<div><a href="https://www.passagesbookshop.com/" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Passages Bookshop</a><br>
1801 NW Upshur St. #660, Portland<br>
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<b>Sunday, August 6, 2023</b><br>
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<div>Doors at 7:00p, reading at 7:30p, ending around 9:30p<br>
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<div>Admission free; no late entry</div>
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<div>Please join us for this unique celebration of an important
new translation. Translator Deborah Woodard will be
accompanied by multiple voices to read the complete English
translation of Rosselli's book-length poem (approximately 90
minutes; complete list of readers TBA).</div>
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<a href="https://entreriosbooks.com/products/dragonfly"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><i>The Dragonfly </i>was
published this year by Entre Ríos books.</a>
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<div>A trilingual writer who described herself as “a poet of
exploration,” <b>Amelia Rosselli</b> has only recently been
recognized as one of the major European poets of the
twentieth century. Born in Paris in 1930, she was the
daughter of the martyred anti-fascist philosopher Carlo
Rosselli and the British political activist Marion Cave.
Raised in exile, in France, Switzerland, England, and the
United States—in interviews, Rosselli remembered her years
in the US with great fondness—she finally settled in Italy
after the war, first in Florence and then in Rome. Except
for a year she spent in London in the mid-seventies,
Rosselli never left Rome, where, devastated after years of
struggling with mental illness, she took her own life in
1996. The tragedy of her father’s death and the loss of her
mother when she was only nineteen were central to Rosselli,
defining her in many ways: from her “trilingual language”
and cosmopolitan upbringing—though she thought of herself
more as a refugee—to her political engagement and deep
social consciousness. Rosselli was the author of eight
collections of poetry (one, <i>Sleep</i>, in English), a
translator of Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, among
others, and an accomplished musicologist and musician who
played the violin, the piano, and the organ. <i>The
Dragonfly</i> was first published in its present format as
the opening section of the collection <i>Hospital Series</i> (Milano:
Il Saggiatore, 1969).<br>
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<b>Deborah Woodard</b> holds an MFA from the University of
California, Irvine, and a PhD from the University of
Washington. She is the author of <i>Plato’s Bad Horse </i>(Bear
Star Press, 2006), <i>Borrowed Tales </i>(Stockport Flats,
2012), and <i>No Finis: Triangle Testimonies, 1911</i> (Ravenna
Press, 2018). Her chapbook <i>Hunter Mnemonics</i> (hemel
press, 2008) was illustrated by artist Heide Hinrichs. She
has translated Amelia Rosselli with Giuseppe Leporace in <i>The
Dragonfly: A Selection of Poems: 1953– 1981</i> (Chelsea
Editions, 2009) and with Roberta Antognini in <i>Hospital
Series </i>(New Directions, 2015), <i>Obtuse Diary </i>(Entre
Ríos Books, 2018), <i>The Dragonfly </i>(Entre Rios Books,
2023), and <i>Notes Scattered and Lost</i> (Entre Rios
Books, forthcoming 2024). Woodard teaches at Hugo House in
Seattle and co-curates the reading series Margin Shift.</div>
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