Whatever The Name

This intense and compact collection of poetry divided into two sections tells the story of a revolt against silence in the face of traumatic family secrets. The collection starts in the form of a dream-like dialogue with past generations, followed by a section concerning a physical experience from Lepori’s early childhood and culminates, in the second section, with a supplication for change in our morally and ethically restrictive society. His poems allow the reader to face his or her existential fears as well as the pain of child/parent relationships with all their differing realities and myths. Jean-Paul Werner Walshaw-Sauter, Goodreads Peter Valente is not only a gifted translator but also a fine poet. Both of these formidable strengths are in evidence in his marvelous rendition of Pierre Lepori’s Qualunque sia il nome. Due to Valente’s efforts, Lepori’s work, which interweaves societal concerns with personal history and a distinct regard for the interiorities of the Italian language, is now destined to reach a larger audience in the English speaking world. Valente’s faithful translations convey with grace and beauty not just the meanings but the stylistic subtlety of Lepori’s verse. Valente’s significant accomplishment can perhaps be best summed up by a phrase from Lepori himself: …everything is now offered to us / like an array of sparkling lights. Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno