White Whale Review: Daniele Pantano

Untitled Document

WHITE WHALE REVIEW

DANIELE PANTANO

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, and editor. His individual poems, essays, and reviews, as well as his translations from the German by Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Georg Trakl, have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies worldwide, including Absinthe: New European Writing, ARCH, The Baltimore Review, Gradiva: International Journal of Italian Poetry, Italian Americana, The Mailer Review, and 32 Poems Magazine. He is the co-editor of Härter, a prominent German literary magazine, and former editor of Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art, The M.A.G, and Poems Niederngasse: Die Zeitschrift für Lyrik. His next books, The Oldest Hands in the World (a collection of poems), The Possible Is Monstrous: Selected Poems by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and The Collected Works of Georg Trakl, are forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press, New York. Pantano has taught at the University of South Florida and served as the Visiting Poet-in-Residence at Florida Southern College. He divides his time between Switzerland, the United States, and England, where he's Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University.

From the Current Issue

Daniele Pantano

MATRYOSHKAS

for V. Peppard

I’m alone. The porch. Empty.

Except for a wooden ashtray.

Still. She’s there. My neighbor.

Cancerous. Rotting. I watch.

Her. By the chain-linked fence.

In her wheelchair. Staring at.

The street between us. Awash.

In the light of Russian winters.

Do not talk to me about the moon.

She says. Again. I have not wasted

My life. I turn the ashtray. Over-

Flowing. Not with the usual cut

Stems. But small flower heads

Of the most delicate white flesh.

Daniele Pantano

DOPPELGÄNGER

Back. At the Luxembourg. People watching. For you. I will

Not cleave to the cardinal semblance. Passing the odd-shaped

Lake. Flagging. The remains. After all this time. We mistake

For our past. The smolder of ’68 Citröens. Our adulterous

Riots. In these beds of flowering tobacco. There is no absence

That cannot be replaced. Your favorite line. I rose against. Today.

"There is no absence that cannot be replaced" is a line from René

Char's poem "Chaîne."

Daniele Pantano

IN AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE

for Franz Wright

Philosophy failed!

The banner no one could read pronounced.

Previous Author Prev Next Next Author