robert m. GiannettiPOET, AUTHOR, COLLABORATOR
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CURRENT PROJECTS
OLD BOOK SELLER" NEPALI TRANSLATION
This from Nepali poet and translator Keshab Sigdel who translated "Old Book Seller" for the literary magazine Kalashree:
Nepali Version:
http://www.nepalikalasahitya.com/robert-giannetti-world-literature.php
English Version:
http://www.nepalikalasahitya.com/en/robert-giannetti-world-literature.php
This from Nepali poet and translator Keshab Sigdel who translated "Old Book Seller" for the literary magazine Kalashree:
Nepali Version:
http://www.nepalikalasahitya.com/robert-giannetti-world-literature.php
English Version:
http://www.nepalikalasahitya.com/en/robert-giannetti-world-literature.php
A POETIC JOURNEY TO CHINA
In late September I had the honor of participating in an International Poetry Week: Poetry – Beacon of the World, an event held in Zigong City, Sichuan Province, China. Poets from China and 13 other countries across the globe were invited to the event, all expenses paid, as part of the cultural outreach dimension of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative. Much pomp and ceremony accompanied the event, which included readings and seminars as well as toursof cultural sites. Our host was Jidi Majia, highly regarded poet, scholar and literary critic.
We had all been asked to submit some poems and an essay beforehand. They were all collected and published in a bilingual English-Chinese anthology that was distributed upon arrival at the event and served to introduce the poets to one another. Interpreters were available for individual conversations and simultaneous translation technology was utilized for the formal readings and seminars. The seminars focused largely on the role of poetry in promoting world peace and integrating poetry into China’s rural revitalization efforts.
Prior to the event in Zigong I spent some time in Beijing with three other poets in meetings with Jidi Majia and guided tours of The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, the Underground City, Tiananmen Square, and other sites.
It was a truly remarkable cross-cultural experience and I have much I would like to share about it. I will give a presentation on Thursday, October 25 at 6:30 PM at the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection in the Capen Library. The evening’s activities will also include a brief selection of poems from my recent book, The Frontier, which will be performed with violist Leslie Bahler in the duo we call Voice and Viola.
In late September I had the honor of participating in an International Poetry Week: Poetry – Beacon of the World, an event held in Zigong City, Sichuan Province, China. Poets from China and 13 other countries across the globe were invited to the event, all expenses paid, as part of the cultural outreach dimension of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative. Much pomp and ceremony accompanied the event, which included readings and seminars as well as toursof cultural sites. Our host was Jidi Majia, highly regarded poet, scholar and literary critic.
We had all been asked to submit some poems and an essay beforehand. They were all collected and published in a bilingual English-Chinese anthology that was distributed upon arrival at the event and served to introduce the poets to one another. Interpreters were available for individual conversations and simultaneous translation technology was utilized for the formal readings and seminars. The seminars focused largely on the role of poetry in promoting world peace and integrating poetry into China’s rural revitalization efforts.
Prior to the event in Zigong I spent some time in Beijing with three other poets in meetings with Jidi Majia and guided tours of The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, the Underground City, Tiananmen Square, and other sites.
It was a truly remarkable cross-cultural experience and I have much I would like to share about it. I will give a presentation on Thursday, October 25 at 6:30 PM at the University at Buffalo’s Poetry Collection in the Capen Library. The evening’s activities will also include a brief selection of poems from my recent book, The Frontier, which will be performed with violist Leslie Bahler in the duo we call Voice and Viola.
READING AT YALE CLUB NYC APRIL 20, 2018....See broadside:

robert_m._gianetti_yale_club_04-20-18_[1758].pdf | |
File Size: | 70 kb |
File Type: |
VOICE AND VIOLA AT SECOND READER BOOKSHOP, MARCH 23, 2018 ....See broadside:

voice_and_viola_frontier_program_03_23_18.docx | |
File Size: | 14 kb |
File Type: | docx |
APPEARANCE ON "AM BUFFALO...promoting Harmonia Chamber Singers
BUFFALO NEWS ARTICLE NOVEMBER 2, 2017.....Voice and Viola Reading and "The Frontier"
NIAGARA ARTS AND CULTURAL CENTER INTERVIEW...Video October 9, 2017
THE FRONTIER: POETRY AND PROSE.....a new book published in October 2017
VOICE AND VIOLA...a performing duo composed of poet Robert M. Giannetti and violist Leslie Bahler.
FIVE BROADSIDES...a chapbook created in collaboration with photographer James Sedwick published in August 2017
BUFFALO NEWS ARTICLE NOVEMBER 2, 2017.....Voice and Viola Reading and "The Frontier"
NIAGARA ARTS AND CULTURAL CENTER INTERVIEW...Video October 9, 2017
THE FRONTIER: POETRY AND PROSE.....a new book published in October 2017
VOICE AND VIOLA...a performing duo composed of poet Robert M. Giannetti and violist Leslie Bahler.
FIVE BROADSIDES...a chapbook created in collaboration with photographer James Sedwick published in August 2017
THE FRONTIER: POETRY AND PROSE
Crossing back and forth over the border of poetry and prose this book brings fresh perspective to the big questions of human life. Based in memorable observations of the natural world it also brings into sharp focus the doings of the everyday world about us. In its brief space it defines the vast frontier between the preoccupations of our contemporary culture and the possibility of living an authentic life.
Some poems from the upcoming book:
A Dog and his Master
If a dog can go only so far,
never beyond
a human’s blissful mental age of two or three,
bred and trained in his routine
and connected to pack or family, happy in domestication
unless deprived of loving attention or food –
how much more are we bound to contemplate
his master leashed,
his evolution extending only so far,
checked at the edge of sustained contentment,
pulled back into familiar human ways --
warfare, competition, cruelty, deceit --
gripped by the gnawing suspicion that perhaps
he can be looked upon as he
looks upon his dog,
conditioned to accept
the brief, uncertain time,
the limited perception and awareness
neither he nor his dog
can run beyond.
The Pendulum
Difficult to imagine its first slow swings
sometimes years in the making,
then growing shorter and shorter,
reverting back to a slow sway,
and back again, and back again.
Changes of mind,
shifts of perspective,
compromise, stubbornness,
close stifling arcs, then wider open ones,
reaching for distance, then falling back,
at last in seeming suspension, motionless
in a rapid and obliterating flutter
that like a hummingbird’s wings
denies any show of movement at all
and defines the sum
of all assurance.
PROSPERO
Between the forgotten swaddling at birth
and tender mercies offered in the drift into death,
is a raging contest between noble commitment
and the simple joy of indulgence.
And as we can no longer recall
our wordless joy at birth,
so will any stated pride of purpose in life
unravel inarticulately in death.
Vigorous in his powers Prospero
renounced even the magic of his books,
high-minded purpose yielding
to the truth of time’s passage,
brief joy bookended
by birth and death.
How to live is always –
a question of the moment
that cannot wait on an unknown, and final
answer.
Particularly in spring.
Voice and Viola
A performing duo composed of poet Robert M. Giannetti and violist Leslie Bahler. They present pairings of Giannetti’s poetry with Bahler’s solo viola renderings of classical and folk music selections. Their programs find synergies of emotion and language in the two modes of artistic expression, and create the effect of an engaging dramatic conversation, complete with agreements and disagreements, shifts of mood and direction, comparisons and contrasts.
The group’s performances have been well received in several diverse venues including the Youngstown Presbyterian Church, St. John's Grace Spiritual Cafe, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, the Fridays at Westminster series, the Canterbury Woods Community, the Niagara Falls Public Library, and the Western New York Land Conservancy, which recently engaged Voice and Viola for a $100 a person benefit performance in East Aurora.
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