(by Maria Luisa Dezi, June 2019)
You have an impressive resume! But how did you get to poetry?
I came to poetry in an unusual way, I would say unexpected. I started writing after surviving a tragic car accident. I had never written poetry before, although I have always been a good book reader. Thirteen years have passed since my first publication. "Credo" was released in 2006. Since then I have never stopped writing in verse. I realize that poetry has given me great satisfaction over time, I think I still have a lot to learn. You never stop growing and as I am, I always need new stimuli. My poetry is aimless.
What is poetry for you?
Poetry is the ideal dimension in which I am comfortable with myself and reach a balance with time, the cosmos and things. I consider it a unique and rare gift, as is life. Everything around me can become a source of inspiration: a dawn, a blade of grass, a falling leaf. Poetry is everywhere. It is enough to know how to recognize it.
They called you the poet of images and feelings. How is your poem born?
Images are essential. For me poetry must feed on visions, perceptions, intuitions, sounds, silences. The five senses must also manifest. I have no precise rules for writing a poem. When I feel that I have to stop and stare at something on the paper, then I let the words guide me. I often write in pen in a notebook. Then I copy to the computer. It is as if I underwent a transformation. I must be in complete solitude, in silence, with no one around, in an "uncontaminated" dimension.
What time of day do you write?
There is no precise moment. It can happen early in the morning or late at night. It is the poetry he chooses. Inspiration does not come into command. It happens, like the unexpected things in life.
What do you believe in?
I believe in life, in its beauty and uniqueness. I believe in love, that of listening, understanding, respect and freedom. I believe in the universal good for things and for humanity. Here, poetry is nourished by that good to which I cannot renounce and expresses itself through that feeling that belongs to me.
What excites you?
The light that I see every day excites me as soon as I open my eyes, the air I breathe, the sky in its immensity, the clear and infinite sea, the snowy peaks where I spent my childhood, my mother's reserved voice, my look protective of my father, a lamp lit up in the dark of evening, the silence of those I love, all that makes me wonder and amazement.
They compared you to Alda Merini, what emotion does this thing create for you?
I think it's an excessive comparison. I love Alda Merini and she has always been a poet I read and admired. I wasn't lucky enough to meet her, but I wanted so much to meet her. It honors me, of course, to be compared to a great woman and poet. We share the love for poetry, that feeling life to the full, between lights and shadows that alternate. Each has its own history, its own identity: sometimes due to strange intersections of destiny, some things coincide.
You live in the Monteverde neighborhood in Rome for a reason, don't you?
And this also shows your love for poetry. Do you want to explain the reason for it?
I arrived in Monteverde for love. It is the neighborhood where my partner was born and raised and in which Pier Paolo Pasolini lived for more than ten years, among the poets that I consider fundamental in my literary journey. Here I got to know his boys: I became very friendly with Silvio Parrello, "er Pecetto" in the novel "Ragazzi di vita" published by Garzanti in 1955. It was he who made me passionate about Pasolini's works. Talking with Silvio means immersing yourself in the truth of those times, it means feeding on the words of Pier Paolo. It is as if Pasolini had never left, via Ozanam is still plastered with his images, the people who loved him, never failing to remember him: he was a generous man who knew how to listen to anyone. Living in this area means having the privilege of eating daily culture, history and beauty.
Besides Pasolini, what other poets and writers can you get involved with?
There are many poets I love: Giovanni Pascoli, Giacomo Leopardi, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Salvatore Quasimodo, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Isabella Morra, Alda Merini, Antonia Pozzi, Amelia Rosselli, Dino Campana, to name a few. I often read contemporary authors, especially young people. I happen to be confronted with talents that I think deserve to have more visibility, even though I am aware that it is really difficult to carve out a space in this environment.
Of these poets you mentioned, what is poetry or what are the poems that most impressed you?
The poetry that perhaps struck me most is "And it is immediately evening" by Salvatore Quasimodo. In three ways he managed to give us a concrete vision of existence: fleeting and tormented. Just the term "everyone" makes universal lyric, addressed to humanity. I prefer the essentiality and I could only choose one of my favorites.
"Everyone is only on the heart of the earth
pierced by a ray of sunshine:
and it is immediately evening "
Then there is still Padua in your heart, your hometown.
Padua never fails. I have written so many poems for my land. The origins are the trace of what we are. If we are born in one place rather than another, it is no accident. In us there are the colors, the moods, the truths of the roads we have trampled on, of the people we have met. I grew up in Campo San Martino, a small village in the province of Padua, in the heart of the Po valley. Fog is the element that most characterizes these areas and I also remember it with a thin veil of nostalgia.
You are the President of the Italian Network for Euro-Mediterranean dialogue, aren't you? What is it about?
From April 2018 I am President of the Italian Network for Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue, a social promotion association that operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), in collaboration with public and private institutions, the bodies non-governmental and national civil society. The Network promotes dialogue between peoples and states, especially in the Euro-Mediterranean area, and aims to actively involve all members in order to become an authoritative network, thanks to the contribution of the member associations. Among the members there is the association Le Ragunanze which I chair and which for 7 years has been organizing the international prize of poetry and narrative of the same name, recalling the figure of Christine of Sweden, who conceived the meetings for her Arcadia. Furthermore, EMUI EuroMed University is part of the network, an inter-university platform of which I am focal points for international relations. In October 2019, in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Spain and the Cervantes Institute in Rome, we will hold the convention "Pasolini and the Spanish culture" with particular reference to Rafael Alberti, a Spanish poet who lived in Trastevere, a very close friend of Pasolini.
You wrote the collection of poems Sensuality - love poems to love. What or who Michela falls in love with?
It is a collection I published in 2011. They were all love poems that I gathered in a collection. I think it was the basis to write then my next collection "Feminine Meditations", which was then translated into English for the New York publishing house Bordighera Press. Good question ... of whom I fall in love ... maybe I should start from myself, but I still haven't managed to love myself as I would like. But I love life and with it all that includes it: lights, shadows, joys, sufferings. I think I fell in love a few times, but I know that I have always put all of myself into relationships with the people I loved. I certainly made mistakes, but I have no regrets. I always did what my heart dictated.
What is the story of Noise in the dust instead?
It is a poem I wrote a long time ago. With this lyric I participated in a meeting for Memorial Day, organized by the director and writer Vittorio Pavoncello. The Holocaust has always touched me deeply and the text was born in a particular moment of my existence: I thought I had to talk about it, I had to try to do it with the only instrument I had: poetry. "This earth resembles / the veins of a sunset / forced to toast with evil / and to dye its face with mist". I didn't want to fall into banality, I wanted people to read and see what I described and feel all the pain of that unheard-of tragedy.
I personally find it beautiful and moving. We are so addicted to the images of the Nazi concentration camps that they no longer give us any kind of emotion and this is dangerous, but this poem is truly moving and sobering. Is this the task of poetry?
I am particularly happy when someone is moved or feels some emotion reading. Poetry is an important communication tool, with enormous potential: those who write in verse certainly have a responsibility. In a nutshell, he must know how to transmit, to center, to strike. The reader should approach with a predisposition to listening. Because poetry does not need distractions or superficiality.
With this poem, however, you also make it clear that the poet is not the one who lives in an Ivory Tower, but is confronted with reality.
The poet lives in his time, he is part of it. He must necessarily confront himself with what is around him. He cannot remain indifferent. It really depends on what you want to do in life: write for fun or write to feel everything on your skin and in your veins.