Langue Lost, Language Found: Poetic Interventions, Part 3

by Allison Grimaldi Donahue and Carmen Gallo

For the third and final chapter of Langue Lost, Language Found: Poetic Interventions, part of Società delle Api’s Public Program curated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue, the Foundation launched an open call inviting emerging artists, poets, writers, and researchers. Thirteen participants were selected to take part in a collective translation workshop centred on W. H. Auden’s The Fall of Rome, approaching language as a space for encounter, dialogue, and shared experimentation.

Led by Allison Grimaldi Donahue and Carmen Gallo, the workshop explores translation as a practice of exchange, transformation, and the collective construction of meaning, opening a broader reflection on Auden’s poem, poetic writing, and the creative possibilities that emerge through the passage between languages. Written in the aftermath of the Second World War, The Fall of Rome uses the fall of the Roman Empire as a metaphor to reflect on the decline of civilizations, historical change, the indifference of everyday life in the face of major crises, and the fragility of the social order. Its ability to speak to the present makes the poem a starting point for a collective reflection on language and translation.

The workshop alternates moments of discussion, translation exercises, and collective writing practices, bringing different perspectives and sensibilities into dialogue. While the workshop itself is reserved for the selected participants, the translations produced during the workshop will be printed in a limited-edition poster, produced in collaboration with Litografia Bulla and presented to the public in autumn 2026.

Selected participants: Traven Thomas, Aurora Caruso, Rose Di Felice, Lucia Finn, Chiara Madonna, Alessia Sebastiani, Ettore Botti, Özge Şahin, Cecilia Carponi, Misha Farhana, Monica Dell’Acqua, Marco Bartoli and Leonardo Zappalà.

Langue Lost, Language Found: Poetic Interventions is a series within Società delle Api’s Public Program that brings together artistic practices and writing through performances, readings, and workshops. Bringing together Italian and international artists, poets, and writers, the series explores poetry as a shared experience, highlighting its collective dimension and its tangible presence in everyday life.

Società delle Api’s Public Program was conceived as a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to encounter, exchange, and collaboration across artistic practices and different fields of research. Through conversations, performances, readings, workshops, and moments of shared inquiry, the programme creates new connections between the visual arts, literature, poetry, music, and other forms of cultural and artistic production.

Full Programme

22 May

25 June

9 July

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Allison Grimaldi Donahue (1984, United States) is the author of Comporci (edizioni enemble, 2026) and The History of Breathing (Diaphanes, 2025), and the translator of Carla Lonzi’s Self-Portrait (Divided, 2021). Recent presentations of her poetic performances, installations, and collective actions include the Guggenheim Foundation Venice, Luci d’Artista in Turin, MACTE Termoli, Museo Madre in Naples, Kunsthalle Bern, Sonnenstube in Lugano, Short Theatre in Rome, and Prosopopoeia in Vienna. She is the recipient of the 14th Italian Council Award for Talent Development and the 2026 Premio Gallarate. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the European Graduate School and lives in Bologna.

Carmen Gallo (Naples, 1983) is a poet, translator, and scholar of English literature. In 2025, she published Stanze per una fuga (La Vita Felice), a volume collecting her poetry, including Le fuggitive (Aragno; Premio Napoli 2021). In 2024, she published the photo-text Tecniche di nascondimento per adulti (Italo Svevo), followed by Procne Machine (Einaudi, 2026). She has written on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne and has translated and edited, among others, Romeo and Juliet (BUR Rizzoli, 2023), The Waste Land (Il Saggiatore, 2021), and works by Caryl Churchill, Hannah Sullivan, and others. She teaches English Literature at Sapienza University of Rome.