Close to the Teeth

An iconoclastic portrayal of Italian domestic spaces, especially the kitchen and the body, Close to the Teeth is an exploration of the intimate space that belongs to women, and of the ways in which that space alternately oppresses and gives power. The domestic interior and the female body often become one another in these poems in ways that are frightening, illuminating, and deeply familiar. In them the dangers and the powers of the domestic emerge alongside those of the body. This collection is also a deeply personal account, fragmentary, increasingly tense, yet flexible and fierce.

Elisa Biagini has published poetry collections such as L'Ospite (Einaudi 2004), Fiatto. parole per musica (D'If 2006), Nel Bosco (Einaudi 2007), The Guest in the Wood (Chelsea Editions 2013-14; Best Translated Book Award), Da una crepa (Einaudi 2017), Depuis une fissure (Cadastre8zero 2018; Prix Nunc), and Filamenti (Einaudi 2020). Her poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and she has translated contemporary American poets for Italian reviews, anthologies, and complete collections (Nuovi Poeti Americani, Einaudi 2006). She teaches writing at NYU Florence. www.elisabiagini.it Sarah Stickney is a poet and translator. She is the Dean of Deep Springs College. Diana Thow is an award winning literary translator from Italian. Her translations include Amelia Rosselli's Hospital Series (Otis Press/Seismicity Books 2017), Impromptu (Guernica Editions 2014), and Elisa Biagini's The Guest in the Woods (Chelsea Editions 2013). She holds an MFA in translation from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley, where she is a lecturer in Italian Studies.