NUMERI E STELLE by Laura Garavaglia
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A nice surprise was the poetry of Laura Garavaglia that I only knew until a few months ago thank some texts read, if I remember correctly, on internet. A nice surprise because poets with one well-defined identities like her are rare on the Italian scene.
Now I have in my hands three volumes, Correnti ascensionali- Updrafts, from 2013, published in the beautiful series “Hybrid” by CFR; The symmetry of the kernel, from 2014; and Numbers and stars of this year, all three with well-edited translations and prefaces by Donatella Bisutti, Maurizio Cucchi e Gilberto Isella. Important endorsements, and reading the texts I realize that we are in the presence of a poet not only with the right credentials, but who knew how to interpret today's world with an effective linguistic attitude and complicity (which does not mean absolutely condescension and sharing) which I find lucid and passionate together.
In the Preface to Correnti ascensionali- Updrafts, Donatella Bisutti speaks of “dramatic violence” and of "Expressionist violence" and it seems to me that it fully grasps the force of a poetic writing that does not make concessions to anyone, not even to the author. Yet it remains an authentic expression of a woman who has a restless and torn world and wants to give knowledge not as a diary, but as a metaphor for one human condition that affects everyone.
In Laura’s poetry likes what the ancient Greeks called "measure", her apodictic saying that does not disdain any vocabulary item, not even of a technical nature or scientific.
I don't think it's a novelty, to stay in Italy it would be enough to think of Elio Pagliarani or Nelo Risi experiences, but the way in which things are said is new, sometimes oscillating in delicately lyrical aura and at other times affirmed as a reconnaissance, as a showcase of sensations and perceptions.
Sensations and perceptions masterfully interpreted by the captivating and perturbing sculptures of Daniela Gatti, but cut with the same hatchet used by Laura to chisel. " Her thighs whipped up/in the Sundays of heat and mosquitos./Her feet swollen and her ankles peel/of rotten peach./Humid and large of sweat and meat,/white sphere, round the thought/proverbs drenched in wine” (Woman of sweat)”
The calmness with which Laura "notes" the macerated and emblematic experiences becomes one astounding purity in the book The symmetry of the kernel in which I found more than just one pearl for the originality of the topics covered but also and perhaps above all for the "visionary" of the gaze that dwelling on apparently superfluous details gives us the mystery behind reality, takes us into that "tangled forest of symbols" that Baudelaire claimed to find beyond of appearance, of form. I only mention the poems Library of Coimbra, The stars have fallen in glass, Alan Turing, texts in which enchantment and disenchantment face each other to find a new way of wisdom. Yes, because Laura's poetry, all of it, has this sapiential flavor but never rigorous and closed in the parameters of thinkers, but open to conversation, to a dynamism that she feels the urge to seek the meaning of being and living.
The book Numbers and stars also move in this dimension that enters and disrupts physics and the philosophy, obviously without resorting to contrasts or variations, but following poetry intuitions which very often, if it is truly poetry, overcomes any experience of science.
In the precise and rigorous preface to the book by Gilberto Isella, it is mentioned, among others, Prigogine. Personally I was able to listen to him years ago at the Turin Book Fair where then I managed to have a nice chat with him about Tommaso Campanella's poetry which I have dealt with for a long time. Isella is right to name Prigogine for Laura Garavaglia, in fact, she uses poetry with the ways and intentions with which Prigogine has used science. I add the name of Campanella, naturally taking into account the epochs and language that in Laura is not stony and rough, but exceptionally synthetic and gently penetrating.
Now I have in my hands three volumes, Correnti ascensionali- Updrafts, from 2013, published in the beautiful series “Hybrid” by CFR; The symmetry of the kernel, from 2014; and Numbers and stars of this year, all three with well-edited translations and prefaces by Donatella Bisutti, Maurizio Cucchi e Gilberto Isella. Important endorsements, and reading the texts I realize that we are in the presence of a poet not only with the right credentials, but who knew how to interpret today's world with an effective linguistic attitude and complicity (which does not mean absolutely condescension and sharing) which I find lucid and passionate together.
In the Preface to Correnti ascensionali- Updrafts, Donatella Bisutti speaks of “dramatic violence” and of "Expressionist violence" and it seems to me that it fully grasps the force of a poetic writing that does not make concessions to anyone, not even to the author. Yet it remains an authentic expression of a woman who has a restless and torn world and wants to give knowledge not as a diary, but as a metaphor for one human condition that affects everyone.
In Laura’s poetry likes what the ancient Greeks called "measure", her apodictic saying that does not disdain any vocabulary item, not even of a technical nature or scientific.
I don't think it's a novelty, to stay in Italy it would be enough to think of Elio Pagliarani or Nelo Risi experiences, but the way in which things are said is new, sometimes oscillating in delicately lyrical aura and at other times affirmed as a reconnaissance, as a showcase of sensations and perceptions.
Sensations and perceptions masterfully interpreted by the captivating and perturbing sculptures of Daniela Gatti, but cut with the same hatchet used by Laura to chisel. " Her thighs whipped up/in the Sundays of heat and mosquitos./Her feet swollen and her ankles peel/of rotten peach./Humid and large of sweat and meat,/white sphere, round the thought/proverbs drenched in wine” (Woman of sweat)”
The calmness with which Laura "notes" the macerated and emblematic experiences becomes one astounding purity in the book The symmetry of the kernel in which I found more than just one pearl for the originality of the topics covered but also and perhaps above all for the "visionary" of the gaze that dwelling on apparently superfluous details gives us the mystery behind reality, takes us into that "tangled forest of symbols" that Baudelaire claimed to find beyond of appearance, of form. I only mention the poems Library of Coimbra, The stars have fallen in glass, Alan Turing, texts in which enchantment and disenchantment face each other to find a new way of wisdom. Yes, because Laura's poetry, all of it, has this sapiential flavor but never rigorous and closed in the parameters of thinkers, but open to conversation, to a dynamism that she feels the urge to seek the meaning of being and living.
The book Numbers and stars also move in this dimension that enters and disrupts physics and the philosophy, obviously without resorting to contrasts or variations, but following poetry intuitions which very often, if it is truly poetry, overcomes any experience of science.
In the precise and rigorous preface to the book by Gilberto Isella, it is mentioned, among others, Prigogine. Personally I was able to listen to him years ago at the Turin Book Fair where then I managed to have a nice chat with him about Tommaso Campanella's poetry which I have dealt with for a long time. Isella is right to name Prigogine for Laura Garavaglia, in fact, she uses poetry with the ways and intentions with which Prigogine has used science. I add the name of Campanella, naturally taking into account the epochs and language that in Laura is not stony and rough, but exceptionally synthetic and gently penetrating.
The reviewer:
Dante Maffia is an italian poet, writer, essayist, literary and art critic. The President of the Republic Ciampi in 2004 awarded him a gold medal. The Regional Council of Calabria, the Spinelli, Guarasci, Farina, Di Liegro and Crocetta Foundations nominated him for the Nobel Prize for his literary activity. He received the Laurea Honoris Causa from the Pontifical University.
Dante Maffia is an italian poet, writer, essayist, literary and art critic. The President of the Republic Ciampi in 2004 awarded him a gold medal. The Regional Council of Calabria, the Spinelli, Guarasci, Farina, Di Liegro and Crocetta Foundations nominated him for the Nobel Prize for his literary activity. He received the Laurea Honoris Causa from the Pontifical University.
