A Conversation on Rosselli: Deborah Woodard w/ Sarah J. Bitter

Seattle poet, translator, and teacher Deborah Woodard engages in conversation with poet and translator Sarah J. Bitter about Notes Scattered and Lost, her most recent translation of the renowned post-WWII poet Amelia Rosselli’s work.

About the Book

Primarily consisting of "discards" from her third major collection, Document (I976), the fragments of provide insight into Amelia Rosselli's creative process and her remarkable linguistic originality as a self-described "refugee." While Rosselli's published poems and collections are known for their structure— what she called "almost architectural work"— these bursts of inspiration that she enjoyed writing out by hand on tracing paper, along with passages cut from longer work she found unsatisfactory, reveal her humor and wit combined with a sharp sense of injustice and deep political engagement. Notes is also among her most accessible work. "…since the author runs after the impossible and the public doesn't always keep up, I thought that being a little obvious or accessible wouldn't hurt…"

Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) is now recognized as one of the most striking and experimental poets of twentieth-century Italy. This edition marks the first complete English translation of Notes Scattered and Lost, one of her final works, concluding a trilogy of her shorter writings published by Entre Ríos Books.

Our bilingual edition includes an audio download of selections read in Italian and English by translator Deborah Woodard and actor Ricardo Pieri.

About the Authors/Translators

Deborah Woodard holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and a PhD from the University of Washington. She is the author of Plato’s Bad Horse (Bear Star Press, 2006), Borrowed Tales (Stockport Flats, 2012), and No Finis: Triangle Testimonies, 1911 (Ravenna Press, 2018). Her chapbook Hunter Mnemonics (hemel press, 2008) was illustrated by artist Heide Hinrichs. She has translated Amelia Rosselli with Giuseppe Leporace in The Dragonfly: A Selection of Poems, 1953 – 1981 (Chelsea Editions, 2009), and with Roberta Antognini she has gone on to translate Hospital Series (New Directions, 2015), Obtuse Diary (Entre Ríos Books, 2018), The Dragonfly (Entre Ríos Books, 2023), Notes Scattered and Lost (Entre Ríos Books, 2025), and Document (World Poetry Books, 2025). She teaches creative writing and poetics at Hugo House, a literary center in Seattle, Washington, and cocurates the reading series Margin Shift: Friends in Poetry.

Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) was a poet, translator, musician, and musicologist, born in Paris to refugees from Italy. After World War II, she settled in Rome and emerged as one of the most powerful voices in postwar Italian literature. Her eight volumes of poetry probed the traumas of the 20th century—for Rosselli both personal and historical.

Purchase your copy of Notes Scattered and Lost here.

Host or Publisher Elliott Bay Book Company