[Qwuke]

I love the design of the site and it's really a dream for reading translated poetry! I enjoy reading a handful of Italian poets (and translated poetry in general), and a website like this for German, Polish, etc poetry would be lovely. Would you ever think of open sourcing this for others to attempt this for their own languages?

I'd really love to see a couple poems from the notoriously hard to translate Giacomo Leopardi - they are quite beautiful, and hearing them in Italian is a treat!

[ItalianPoetry]

Thanks!

Yes, I was thinking of cleaning up the repo and make it public in a while, though honestly it's not too pretty ^^

And yes, Leopardi is coming: I have Il Sabato del villaggio almost ready to go :)

[mordechai9000]

So I've studied German a little. I have no conversational skills and little facility reading it. But I really enjoy German poetry in the original language. My theory is that it's like the Guitar Hero version of speaking the language - it lets me play along with an expert, even though I am a rank neophyte. I would love to see this in German.

One thing that bothers me is that the cultural context is lost. I am completely oblivious to things that would be obvious to a native speaker. For instance, I like some poems by Christian Morgenstern, but is that like saying I like a Hallmark card or a Thomas Kincaid painting? I suspect it's a little bit like the latter, which is fine. The Germans I have spoken with had no interest in poetry, good or bad, so they couldn't offer any feedback.

[Mlller]

I, conversely, lack the knowledge to quite get the allusion to a Hallmark card or a Thomas Kincaid painting.

I guess that Kincaid paintings are considered subpar by connoisseurs. That wouldnʼt be the thing with Morgenstern. He is popular, but not that popular, and was sufficiently unconventional at his time to be seen as a genuine creative artist.

That is a comparison in terms of connoisseurship (or snobbery). If I had to make a comparison in terms of how the workʼs nature, Iʼd say that the shorter poems are like Roger Price droodles.

[monkeycantype]

Oh I love christian morgenstern poems but I've only ever come across a handful. the one about the man who said he doesn't exist!

[ItalianPoetry]

Never mind, it was La sera del dì di festa. But here it is :)

https://italianpoetry.it/poems/la-sera-del-d%C3%AC-di-festa/

[Qwuke]

This is a fantastic reading, kudos to you! I'll be sharing this with my reading group, I'll let you know if they've any feedback.