Poetry Rules

I am so pleased that my new chapbook, Diagnosis , is now available from  {dancing girl press & studio} . I am indeed happy and grateful that Kristy Bowen chose it in the first place. I know a few of my friends have already ordered a copy and I hope more will. Let me tell you something about how the poems of this chapbook came to me. The original poem, which is also the one that gives the name to the chapbook, revolves around the idea that being "diagnosed" with poetry can be a lacerating experience. Writing about the hare in this poem made the whole difference. Indeed, when picking up my collection of poems by Sylvia Plath just a few days later and leafing through its pages, I ended up reading her poem "Totem." It was then that I found the path I was looking for. The following lines struck a chord deep within me: "In the bowl the hare is aborted, Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice, Flayed of fur and humanity, Let us eat it like Pl...

So, it has happened at last. I am so happy of having a chapbook of my poems published in the US. It is a dream come true. It is almost a great act of hybris for somebody whose mother tongue is Italian, but who has dwelled in the English language since the age of 8 when she lived abroad for 5 years--in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates--attending American and International schools. I write poetry in Italian as well naturally but, I do believe that I write my best poems  in English. I hope this will not sound conceited. Honestly, I just look at some of my poems from this collection and think to myself that they make me proud. I guess I can say that a hint to how "good" one of the poems is came from a rejection that John Rosenwald, Co-editor of Beloit Poetry Journal  mailed to me: Dear Alessandra Bava, At our quarterly editorial board meeting that concluded yesterday we spent considerable time discussing your work, especially "Never Thirty-Seven" and "...

I have always been fascinated by Plath's bee poems, the culminating section of Ariel . They are haunting. The poems date back to the Fall of 1962, just a few months before she committed suicide. Despite the idyllic setting of Court Green in Devon where she was writing them, these poems set the tone of her "breakdown" and they also mark the incipient end of her relationship with Ted Hughes . As she writes in her diary, on October 9, 1962: "Everything is breaking: my dinner set is breaking in half, the health inspector says the cottage should be demolished. There is no hope for it. Even my beloved bees set upon me today when I numbly knocked aside their sugar feeder, and I am all over sting..." I have reread Sylvia's bee poems several times in the past few days and I am captured by their imagery, by the powerful metaphor of how painful the poetry craft can be. Muse bring me a sting, I shall write... Justin Fitzpatrick, The Arrival of the Bee Box 

Does poetry need labels? I have been thinking a lot about this topic lately. I am part of a group of poets known as the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. We write poems that are not  meant for old, dusty, elitarian parlors on topics dealing with social themes--such as injustice, labor, etc.--and that are closer to people and their struggle. This said, I know that as much as the social aspect of poetry has a deep resonance for me, I also know that there is another aspect of poetry that truly grabs me. It's the "me, myself and I." It's talking about oneself, about one's body, one's feelings without hindrance or fear. I know some people and poets detest confessional poetry , but it is really the poetry I consider closest to my spirit. Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath 's poems have played a key role in making me love this form of poetry, making me always more aware of how poetry can deal with love, death, suicide, sex, abuse, but also menstruation at 40. Why should ...

I woke up this morning to the wonderful news that Editor Juliet Cook has selected my chapbook "They Talk About Death" as one of the 3 winners of the 2014 Blood Pudding Press Chapbook Contest. I am particularly grateful, and not just because this is the second chapbook I have got an acceptance for this year, but mostly because I believe that some of my best poems are collected in this chapbook, starting from the one who gives it its title, i.e. a poem dedicated to two of my literary muses Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath .

The poetry I love has to be potent. Words in poems need to resonate in my head and in my soul. Those very words need not to be adorned, but they have to be made of flesh and bone, of blood and marrow. Those words (and poems) only will be able to convey emotions in a way that make me feel them. The poetry I heartily dislike is the poetry that is fakely true: words woven with artifice, beautiful words put together with some sort of taste, but plainly soulless. Some days ago I was listening to a poet--who also happens to be the editor of a poetry magazine--reading some poems. And, I could not help thinking that she sounded so amazingly artificial. That is why I pretty much wrote a status line on FB that said: "Nobody read their poetry as if they were Anne Sexton , please and thank you!" One of my friends  remarked: "And please, nobody write their poetry as if they were Sylvia Plath ." I cannot but agree: either you have a voice or you have not. I may not be the best p...

Her first name and her amazing smile only. That's how I wish to celebrate Sylvia Plath's 30th birthday. An endless 30th, since Death shall have no dominion and her poetry is immortal.  " I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart.  I am. I am. I am." -- Sylvia Plath