HOTARU NO HAKA
by Francesca Del Moro
Editorial
by Francesca Del Moro
The war and a child’s eyes from which sometimes “strange adult’s tears fall down” are the protagonists of the story by Nosaka Akiyuki that inspired the poems published in this issue. Fireflies are replaced by flying cranes in the poem by Gabriella Musetti, hundreds of coloured origami that, trusting a legend, Sadako Sasaki folded to win the leukaemia she had contracted because of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima when she was only 2 years old. The delicate verses by Leonora Giabbattino effectively capture the instantaneity of death laying a child’s eyes on a mate killed by an explosion. Ulisse Fiolo regrets the lack of a neat memory in his hendecasyllabic lines in Venetian dialect focused on the disproportion between childhood and the death it has to cope with. The same inability to understand of the newborn girl that holds on to her mother’s neck, fearless and in search for kisses in the moving poem-scream by Alba Gnazi.
Take Me
by Alba Gnazi
Take Me
Take Me - I am
a plant and a scream from above; it’s Me
you must take:
the mat and the dust, the heels and the apron,
my wedding ring, my hair
It’s Me
you must take, with the milk still warm the milk
in my breasts, my brain in pieces and the mouth
so vigilant, with my hands
black with rain and labours; the hands of
a woman, a mother, a wife;
of hay, lavender and
rage: Me, as I am: hands on
my hips, mine – if you need,
here or
in your Here that I ignore,
move Me, kick Me, dirty Me, take
Me
Me, and not her,
not her (not her!), her who is looking at you
and does not cry, her who insists on my neck
in search for a whisper and
a kiss so
before you take Me, let me kiss her
again again again let me
kiss her – her her her her …
Not
her, take
Me.
I saw them, the little cranes
by Gabriella Musetti
I saw them, the little cranes
inside the cabinet
in the open air
so little, coloured, in clusters
in falls
in long sloping lines
held by invisible threads
kept clean by a gentle and
not blinding wind
by caring hands
folded, composed
lined up, in coloured rows
curved, in moving strips
dancing
Sadako’s cranes
ready to fly
Almost dark
by Leonora Giabbattino
almost dark
the sky goes red
I look down
- the noise has stopped -
on the ground
I caress
a breathless child
he was a mate of mine
not a game
just a touch of the hands
and we ran together
a long way
Nuova Sezione Poemata-en
by Ulisse Fiolo
Mé tóca – da morìr (o anca taso)
Digo spesso paròe che nó ghé xé,
mé ‘e invento (e desméntego) al momento:
parché, prima, nissun ga mài provà
sté ròbe – nòve – che mi sóeo sento.
Tipo, dèsso: mé nòni, sparìi zóvani
tuti quanti – nó mé ricordo gnanca
‘a vóse, ‘e só paròe; jèro putèo,
massa pìcoeo – e ‘a morte, cussì granda.
[It touches me – to die (or I keep quiet) \\ I often say the nonexistent words, \ I invent them (and forget them) at the moment: \ because, before, nobody has ever known \ the things – new things – that now I feel, alone. \\ Like that: my grandparents, already gone \ all in their youth – I don’t even remember \ their voices, few words; I was still too young, \ I was just a kid – and the Death, so big.]
(09/08/2014 – back home from the district market)
100 mila poeti per il cambiamento
by Francesca Del Moro
In March 2011 Terri Carrion and Michael Rothenberg began the movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change with a call to action on Facebook inviting poets around the world to join in order to celebrate poetry as a promoter of serious social, political, economic and environmental changes. In 2012 Bologna participated in the global initiative summoning up 120 poets that, with musicians and other artists, spread throughout the town centre for a whole day splitting up in 13 different locations, all duly mentioned in the book: libraries, bookshops, wine bars, parks. Passing from oral to written form, the voices that took turns on that 29th September come back to life and crystallize in this antology, released in May 2013 by qudulibri, a Bolognese publisher with a particular interest in civil poetry, specialized in the context of Latin America. Including very different works, with a multiplicity of styles and languages (with parallel Italian translation), this anthology offers a vivid cross-section of a cultural ferment which is extremely lively and yet largely ignored by media and institutions. Even this year, precisely as we are finalizing this magazine issue, the movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change is gathering hundreds of poets in several Italian towns and once again many places in Bologna will host a series of events dedicated to current issues such as psychological and social distress, the labour question, the situation of refugees, the reject of all wars, and gender issues. The work of the organizers, the participation of the artists, and last but not least the publication of this anthology reveal that poetry is in excellent health, despite the persistence in declaring it dead, an opinion especially widespread among those who never mix with it.
in what betrayal does the choice hide? the dumb
house has lost its roof like in a dream
and in the silence the void is full of time – the still
time rocking with the guest in the swing seat
thinking that war is a children’s game
without children in Viznar in Srebrenica in Bezlan
and the cold it feels is the poet’s teeth ignited in the night.
Giancarlo Sissa