Paul Vangelisti

Wholly Falsetto With People Dancing (Otis Books)

An older man's not-so-divine comedy, Vangelisti's FALSETTO is in three parts, corresponding to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise: namely, "Westernmost," the Los Angeles of a poet's daybook; the fool's purgatory of "An Italian Journal," some three weeks up & down the peninsula; and finally, "Wholly Falsetto with People Dancing," an alphabetical memoir of that invisible country of dead poets and loves that are no more. The trips through the first two territories in the work, Los Angeles and Italy, are documented more or less "on the run," in stark contrast to the contemplative nature of the final section of recollections. Among the several subjects interwoven throughout the narrative is Vangelisti's exploration of an 'un-American' literary tradition, set up against that of the dominant Anglo-American culture. Paul Vangelisti is the author of some twenty books of poetry, as well as being a noted translator from Italian. In addition to his new book, Wholly Falsetto with People Dancing, an older man’s not-so-divine comedy, his most recent book of poems, Two, appeared from Talisman House in 2011. In 2006, Lucia Re’s and his translation of Amelia Rosselli’s War Variations won both the Premio Flaiano in Italy and the  PEN-USA Award for Translation. In 2010, his translation of Adriano Spatola’s The Position of Things: Collected Poems, 1961-1992 won the Academy of American Poets Raizzis/de Palchi Book Prize for Translation. From 1971-1982 he was co-editor, with John McBride, of the literary magazine Invisible City and, from 1993-2002, edited Ribot, the annual report of the College of Neglected Science. He worked as a journalist at the Hollywood Reporter (1972-1974), and as Cultural Affairs Director at KPFK Radio (1974-1982). Currently, with Luigi Ballerini, he is editing a six-volume anthology of U.S. poetry from 1960 to the present, Nuova poesia americana, for Mondadori in Milan. Vangelisti is Founding Chair of the Graduate Writing program at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 11, 2013. COPIES OF THE BOOK FROM THIS EVENT CAN BE PURCHASED HERE: http://www.skylightbooks.com/event/paul-vangelisti-reads-wholly-falsetto-people-dancing