Deborah Woodard with Rachel Karyo — 'Document' by Amelia Rosselli

Third Place Books welcomes translator Deborah Woodard to our Ravenna store for a conversation about her new translation of Italian poet Amelia Rosselli's Document — her last collection to be translated into English; an exploration of lived experience and language through the Petrarchan sonnet tradition. Deborah will be joined in conversation by poet Rachel Karyo.

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The pivotal 1976 work of one of Italy's most significant post-war voices asks how poetry can document lived experience while dialoguing with the Petrarchan sonnet tradition. Long fascinated by the classical sonnet as an ideal model, Rosselli took on the Petrarchan structure of a canzoniere—a text in which meaning is generated by sequence—to contain the flood of 175 poems for her third collection. Speaking of Document, Rosselli said: “It was hard work; those who do not write poetry cannot imagine to what lengths poets go in order to compose, even if they barely scrape by, and even if it’s still the case that poetry is either inspired or worthless.” This “hard work” conveyed the pain, intensity, and turmoil of her existence and of our own violent chaotic times. Originally published in 1976, Document is the last of her major collections to be translated into English.

I think the great anti-fascist poet Amelia Rosselli has always been in a "lockdown" mode of existence. Document documents Rosselli's internal well, an echo chamber-she orchestrates the signals of global turmoil of war, violence, class struggle, religion, consumerism, financial capitalism. Nothing goes amiss inside her chamber. Rosselli’s oblique, taut, and mocking entries pile up relentlessly—they make up an anti-fascist soliloquy that also echoes the "lockdown" of our current troubled era." —Don Mee Choi, poet and translator

The daughter of a martyred antifascist philosopher, Amelia Rosselli was born in Paris in 1930, grew up in England and New York, settling in Italy, first in Florence and then in Rome, only after the war. In 1996, she took her own life. A trilingual writer who described herself as “a poet of exploration,” Rosselli was also a translator (Emily Dickinson among others), musician, and musicologist, and the author of eight collections of poetry.

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. With Roberta Antognini, she has translated the poetry of Amelia Rosselli from the Italian in Hospital Series (New Directions, 2015), Obtuse Diary (Entre Rios Books, 2018), The Dragonfly (Entre Rios Books, 2023), Notes Scattered and Lost (Entre Rios Books, 2024), and Document (World Poetry Books, 2025). Deborah teaches hybrid literature and creative writing classes at Hugo House in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Rachel Karyo’s writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Lumina Online, DMQ Review, and Belletrist. Her chapbook, Sometimes at Parties, is available from dancing girl press. Rachel’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart and a Best of the Net Award. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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