Poetry Rules

Carrying a book of poems with me everywhere I go has become a habit. As soon as I have a chance to, I'll grab the book and avidly read a few poems whether I am stuck in a traffic jam or having my coffee break. Wherever and whenever indeed. This reminds me that I am just like my beloved Modì, i.e. painter Amedeo Modigliani, who always carried a book of poems with him. It is a well known fact that he was a fond admirer of "Moldoror" by Lautréamont and that he owned a worn copy of the amazingly hallucinatory poem. He would read a few pages of the book to himself or to friends and acquaintances in the Parisan bars of Montparnasse. How I would have loved to attend such extemporary readings or hear him recite Dante by heart!   As we all know, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned for reason of a summer storm whilst he was sailing his Don Juan  from Lerici to Livorno. He was found on the beach of Viareggio ten days later. His body was horribly disfigured, but his copy of poems by Kea...

Spring at the Protestant Cemetery of Rome makes even gray days seem brighter and the location more inspiring. Keats' tomb is covered with violets and lovely, yellow narcissuses adorn Percy Bysshe's tomb, making the place even more dear to me. If possible!

Back from the Keats-Shelley House. I have been there so many times and yet that place always speaks to me in powerful ways. Two items in particular captured my attention. The sketch of Keats reading--from a notepad by Severn--is simply moving. He seems so busy and so pensive: a lonely star in a desolate world. In the main room, a small green urn containing a fragment of Shelley's jaw made me wish we could still hear the poet utter some of his words to us.