Erminia,
I liked your poem "Io aveva si qualche dubbio"
(can't seem to do the accents on this keyboard). What
intrigued me was the conjugation "io aveva" instead of
"avevo". This did not come across in the translation you
provided. I have been scratching my head trying to think
how it _could_ be rendered in English, but I have not had
an idea yet.
This same device interested me also because if I, or any
non-native speaker of your language, were to write the same
poem, it would be dismissed as a simple grammatical error;
don't you think so? A recent issue of TLS talked about
whether or not Brodsky's poems in English were good or bad
(I have my opinion on the matter, but that's another post entirely).
Some of his detractors complained that he used certain turns of
phrase that a native speaker of English 'simply would not use',
but that seems a false argument to me, since poetry is the ideal
forum for refreshing the language in that way.
Anyway.... complimenti
Kari
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