As the title (meaning “with chopped off hands”) suggests, the hands are at the core of this book in Venetian dialect with parallel Italian translation, dedicated by Fabio Franzin to the world of work, a theme which is very near and dear to him. The hands are those of the workers, and the verses depict their dejection and despair after the closing of the factory. Experiencing temporary lay-off or becoming redundant workers, these men feel crushed by a sense of uselessness, by those empty hours they’re not used to. Besides than a necessary tool to make a living, hands are also the mirror of their identity. “Look at us, look at us, look at me” repeats Franzin while a glimmer of class-consciousness leaks out when the same colleagues who were ready to wrangle over or to ingratiate themselves with the bosses to the detriment of their peers are shown united in misfortune. Nevertheless, for the time being we can’t see any spark of rebellion among these men, although the TV broadcasts images from protests and demonstrations. They cry, they bang their heads against the wall, they swear, but they remain as submissive as they have always been: we follow them as they wander through the streets of their town, their shoulders burdened with shame because they don’t know how to support their family anymore. They hesitate at the thought of seeking refuge from the cold in a bar, since everything, even a coffee or a glass of wine, has a cost they cannot afford anymore. One of them stops to look at a red sweatshirt in a shop window, recognising the gesture of the beggar in the outstretched hand of the mannequin, and purchases the garment to find some consolation. They too are mendicants begging for a new job from factory to factory, until all hope vanishes and sickness prevails. Some of them are overcome by depression, others get eczema on their hands for having them always “nailed to the void”. Carlo too, who hasn’t been working for six months, rages against his hands, during one of the endless days spent loafing around at home, with no housework left to do, and with the sole company of sleazy TV shows. He picks at his calluses with his nails, cuts them with his teeth. False stigmata dangle from their hands because the recession is torturing and crucifying all these men, like the foreman who used to feel like a king and now wears a crown of thorns made of his concerns, experiencing Calvary at fifty rather that at thirty-three. The religious theme is a unifying thread that runs through the entire book: the economic miracle of North-Eastern Italy is made by a saint in procession, which from the beginning is said to have already left, while hail whips the factory and fog envelops the cluster of towns. Nature seems to take its metaphorical revenge on the buildings which have dethroned it, and eventually “there’s no more grape nor job”. Landscape is another of the author’s favourite themes, here taking the shape of a conflict between natural and artificial sceneries, marking the passage from the seizure of power and the subsequent defeat of industrialization. The author insists on materials, on every kind of tool, leading us to understand the skilful gestures and the physical effort of the labourers, to feel their sense of powerlessness surrounded by the instruments they had been using for so many years. Bright details that eventually vanish in the whiteness. White is the colour of the shirts waving their cuffs like ghosts, similar to the ex-workers who have lost their hands since “nobody requires them anymore”. Meanwhile, snow covers the factory as a white shroud, it covers the dream of Smirald, who came from Albania sixteen years before, the dream of family men to clear the mortgage and pay for their children’s education. Fabio Franzin’s poetry overflows with beauty and humanity; it grips our heart while being at the same time politically explosive.

Fabio Franzin
Co'e man monche
[Con le mani mozzate]
Le voci della Luna, 2011