Poetry Rules

It seems I am writing poems again after being on a hiatus. I am not one of those writers/poets who sits at the desk and starts writing. I cannot force myself to write, if I do, I will end up writing a poem without "voice." I always "struggle" with my Muse. I realize many consider the Muse unnecessary to write. Many believe that writing comes from hard work only. True, but then I guess I must belong to a different breed of writers. I love the act of creation when it happens, but I also know that I can't open my notebook, stare at the blank page and fill it for the sake of filling it. Writing comes to me. It is a gift. Something triggers my imagination and words pour on the page.  And, I hardly ever edit my poems. When they come to me, they are "perfect." Or, so they seem to me. Humbert and Lolita made their appearance in the first poem I wrote a few days ago. I was thinking at how, as much as I love Nabokov , I detest his novel  Lolita . I must confes...

When the Lightning Struck I was bare as my skull hoping to find refuge in your words, brain teased to enlightenment as the pages struck the clock of Reason. I feel my blood thicken, Your writing is so hard, I am petrified, Akhmatova. We two are made of storms, сестра*. *sister (from Guerrilla Blues , 2012  © Alessandra Bava)

I am indeed grateful to the upcoming 100 Thousand Poets for Change event in Rome next 27th September. Yesterday evening at a group meeting with the organizer of the event, John and I had the chance to meet a group of young poets known as MEP (Movimento per l'Emancipazione Poesia) -- that is Poetry Emancipation Movement--whose aim is to billpost poems around town but without divulging the poets' names. Each of them signs his/her poems with his initial and a number that identifies them. You may check their website here to see how they work. Their message is pretty clear: they want to bring poetry to the street so that anyone may read it but they choose to have their poems speak for them. No voice, no face and no name is attached to the poem. This form of billposting is unauthorized, so there is a strong element of protest that comes with their activity. I am totally in love with this idea. And yet, I had to question my poetry Weltanschaunung . Does it really matter if peopl...

TWO POETS Lombardo and Bava two Italian poets today sent poems, one from Venice, and one from Rome, Anna and Alessandra, and now I have taken the poems and began to think of the shadows and crevices, the deep gorges and simple lights, I mean I started thinking inside of the poems, as if I had been reborn in them by the simple act of reading Anna, earnest, finding truth in things, tracking words down to the skull of a timeless memory – what poetry means to do to pull me into the sea lead me up the mountain place me in my own place shake branches of our tree late afternoon Alessandra, vivid, a poem for Henry Miller and one on Baudelaire, a poem deep in  the maudit’s heart – she swims in mysteries of exquisite creation as word alone gathers strength by the ashen grove and speeds along across dunes and flat plains poems at my fingertips from these two, and when I look again it’s the wisdom of not knowing everything, t...

I was heading to a poetry reading last Friday and, given the hectic traffic of Friday afternoons in the Eternal city, I decided to opt for a subway ride. The only reason for which I "enjoy" the crowded subway is that it gives me the chance to read and so I sat down holding a book by Verlaine in my hands. I was literally immersed in the beauty of the lines in French until the old lady close to me started to grumble. Maybe she would have preferred a different read--no poetry in the first place and what is more not in French! I felt sorry she could not have any fun taking a peek at my book. This gave me the opportunity to scan for some time the other people sitting and standing close to me. What I saw inspired the poem I wrote, today. A poem on decadence, status symbols and Verlaine of course. Erato sings and I write.

I am very grateful to editor Kathryn Rantala for including this poem in the latest chapter of The Anemone Sidecar . It deals with madness, a theme which has become always more manifest in some of my latest works. Women’s Only Asylum (starring Miss Plath, Miss Frame and Miss Dickinson) A mansion that is more like a condo, inhabited by the kindred souls of those who have lost their sanity. You will find them all gathered here in participating disruption wearing their candid straitjackets, playing cards with their mouths, acting scenes like Tomfools. There is the crazy stare of Sylvia writing wailing lines, on sheets tossed around her body. The new so-called schizophrenia in the lucid ravings of Janet. So many different forms of lunacy, but you will end up loving them all. Even Emily in her room, blowing glass panels to smithereens at last. http://www.ravennapress.com/anemonesidecar/pdf/chapter_16.pdf

I have discovered that the poetry that works better for me is the one that--albeit metaphorically--has its deepest roots in life. I was reading this poem by Anne Sexton again a few days ago and I was struck by the cruelty it depicts. It's not about Briar Rose, or Sleeping Beauty, indeed. It's more about girls having to deal and cope with abusive fathers. Anne's strength comes alive within an armor of words. Can words be abusive? Certainly not as acts. But, even if they cannot kill they can perhaps be of help in effacing the past.  Consider a girl who keeps slipping off, arms limp as old carrots, into the hypnotist's trance, into a spirit world speaking with the gift of tongues. She is stuck in the time machine, suddenly two years old sucking her thumb, as inward as a snail, learning to talk again. She's on a voyage. She is swimming further and further back, up like a salmon, struggling into her mother's pocketbook. Little doll child, come here to Papa. Sit on ...

I found this poem by Angela Carter on the web today. It struck me with its terse words and apparent simplicity. There is a great writer's wisdom in the use of few words and strikingly compelling images. The cat with the spoon ears is just a brilliant sentence, but the last two lines literally give me goose bumps. I feel I have learnt a whole poetry lesson today. You've got a long way to go, my dear Alessandra! My cat Is the snow queen,   This frigid virgin four   Winters old crooks   Her paw to wash a face   White   As starlight, twice   As cold.   She puts back   her ears like spoons to listen to the wind   behind her. She eats   For breakfast, hearts;   For supper, northern lights.

Life can be pretty unbearable at times. I am going through so much lately that I honestly feel a victim of the greed. Other people's greed naturally. I came to the conclusion that it would be much better not to own anything at all, except oneself and one's feelings. This is all I need, this is all that matters. The rest is just...shit! Ferruccio Brugnaro's poem "Buy, Always Consume" translated by Jack Hirschman is a perfect one for my mood today. Buy, buy more than you can consume. Consume. Fuck over any relationship. Step on everything and always buy everything up. Carry home as much as you can. Stuff, stuff yourself with greed. Don’t look anybody in the eyes. Surround yourself with high walls so neither grass nor human voices can reach you; sink, sink into the shit as deep as you can go. You must be on your guard; buy away, carry it home always consume. Look around, make sure they’re not robbing you; trample any flower any plant. Buy, alwa...

Baudelaire's poem is a perfect one for my son Edoardo who, being 11 years old,  feels that he is growing up too fast. Adolescence is indeed the lovely and terrible age of clumsiness. But, I am confident that this is just a step because, like a poet, he will soon learn to spread his wings and fly. Soar, my boy! Often our sailors, for an hour of fun, Catch albatrosses on the after breeze Through which these trail the ship from sun to sun As it skims down the deep and briny seas. Scarce have these birds been set upon the poop, Than, awkward now, they, the sky's emperors, Piteous and shamed, let their great white wings droop Beside them like a pair of idle oars. These wingèd voyagers, how gauche their gait! Once noble, now how ludicrous to view! One sailor bums them with his pipe, his mate Limps, mimicking these cripples who once flew. Poets are like these lords of sky and cloud, Who ride the storm and mock the bow's taut strings, Exiled on earth amid a jeering cr...

Ap-pall-ing clouds coating the lands as crows shadow daisies.

(To Emily Dickinson) The curtain winks - dawn dazzles my sleepless senses awake, as the aching ink invades my paper-soul. This poem has been published on WLoAD.