Document - Amelia Rosselli

The pivotal 1976 work of one of Italy's most significant post-war voices asks how poetry can document lived experience while dialoguing with the Petrarchan sonnet tradition. Long fascinated by the classical sonnet as an ideal model, Rosselli took on the Petrarchan structure of a canzoniere -- a text in which meaning is generated by sequence -- to contain the flood of 175 poems for her third collection. Speaking of DOCUMENT, Rosselli said: 'It was hard work; those who do not write poetry cannot imagine to what lengths poets go in order to compose, even if they barely scrape by, and even if it's still the case that poetry is either inspired or worthless.' This 'hard work' conveyed the pain, intensity, and turmoil of her existence and of our own violent chaotic times. Originally published in 1976, DOCUMENT is the last of her major collections to be translated into English.