"Daniele Pantano is one of the most interesting and versatile English-language poets of his generation."

––Neue Zürcher Zeitung

 

"Daniele Pantano is one of Europe's most exciting poets."

––Southbank Centre, London

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"Daniele Pantano is one of Switzerland's most remarkable contemporary poets."

––European Poetry Festival, London

 

"Daniele Pantano is one of the leading poets of central Europe. A Swiss poet by all rights, and somehow also one of its leading poets of exile."

––3:am Magazine

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"Wonderful."

––John Ashbery (on Walser's Fairy Tales)

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"Now that's real poetry alright." 

––Franz Wright

 

"In Daniele Pantano we have found an heir to Czeslaw Milosz."

––John Domini

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"It prompts every question about authorial intent, literary ethics, and the arts as moral education."

––Camille Ralphs, The Times Literary Supplement (on "Twilight of the Poet")

 

"'I make a dish out of nothing' could be a poetic creed as well as a line from a Daniele Pantano poem, for he is an expert in molding the shapelessness of experience into a variety of crafted forms. A romantic with a sharp intelligence, Pantano gives us poems where heart and mind move together as on a verbal bicycle for two."

––Billy Collins

 

"Pantano offers us a chance once again to see a poet live comparative literature the way Pound did. His poetry and translations reveal that writing is different languages influencing each other at the most intimate and experienced level."

––James Reidel

 

"Fierce, uncompromising, and completely authentic."

––Jay Hopler

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"By imbuing 'mirrors,' 'dishes,' and 'darkened rooms' with philosophical significance, Pantano reexamines the 'unremarkable ruins' of our everyday lives, which give rise to 'chaos,' 'remembrance,' and 'metamorphosis.'"

––Kristina Marie Darling, The Literary Review

 

"I would, without doubt, miss a world in which poems like Pantano's did not exist."

––New Pages

 

"The poems of Swiss-born Daniele Pantano are shadowed by travel and exile, rich with history, music, and a love of language."

––Peter Meinke

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"Daniele Pantano, vigorous, multifaceted, considered and cerebral in his poetry, is one of the most active and highly regarded translators of modern Swiss poets and writers, and has brought to light some of the finest authors of the 20th century in Walser, Dürrenmatt and Trakl. Moreover, he has a fine reputation as a critic, poet and teacher in both America and England. His is a story of living in more than one country, writing in more than one language, pursuing poetry in more than one facet, and anyone who has read his work will not be surprised by the breadth of his background and erudition of his account."

––SJ Fowler

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"It is a moral imperative to read and hear the work of Daniele Pantano, because it is one of the clearest ways by which we are able to bring the world inside. Mr. Pantano shows us a world-perspective that is increasingly necessary for us to remain alive." 

––Nicholas Samaras 

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"Welcome him! Daniele Pantano has arrived in Britain carrying Swiss papers, which are crumpled by history and stained by broken traditions. At the center of this vital writing there is a life (though it is in fragments, literary ones). There is writing in the margins that can't be trusted.  A water-damaged review stands in front of the writing, its lines more like erasures than invitations, barbed wire with tatters of words upon it. Enigmas are small but Pantano suspects the crimes are great."

 ––Robert Sheppard

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"There's an urgency about these compelling poems, as if they had to be written. As if the writer can't afford to waste a word or line. Mass Graves leaves you, in the best sense, hungry for more."

 ––Cliff Yates

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"Mit seinem unbestechlichen Blick für das, was ist, für den Zerfall aber auch für die Lichtblicke 

menschlichen Daseins, hat sich der Schweizer Dichter sizilianischer Herkunft im englischen Sprachraum als Lyriker, Dozent und Poesie-Aktivist einen Namen gemacht."

 ––Solothurner Literaturtage

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"Ein Dichter aus Langenthal schreibt englische Lyrik – was eigenartig anmutet, lässt sich aus der Biographie von Daniele Pantano erklären. In den USA literarisch ausgebildet hat er dort auch sprachlich eine Zuflucht vor der Unbeugsamkeit der Muttersprache gefunden. Die erstmalige Auswahl im Deutschen verblüfft durch ihre breite Formpalette, die Pantano souverän beherrscht. Mit grimmiger Freude am schöpferischen Chaos erblickt er Welten, in denen Verfall, Verstörung und Tod lauern. In Schichten, Splittern und Spiegelungen fängt er sie ein und verwandelt sie in Zeilen von morbider Schönheit."

––Beat Mazenauer

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"L’univers de Pantano? Un monde urbain, parfois ténébreux ou grinçant, souvent inquiétant, douloureux, voire violent… mais que jalonnent des notes plus lumineuses. ( . . . ) Un monde qui m’a interpellé dès la première lecture."

––Eva Antonnikov, Le Courrier

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