Poetry Rules

April is here to stay and you should really do something poetic this month whether you are a Poet or not. Here is a few ideas of how you might celebrate poetry for the coming 30 days:  1. Read a poem a day  2. Write a poem a day (if you need prompts, you may enjoy Kelli Agodon 's  here )  3. Listen to poets read their poems (try YouTube, I am suggesting one I love here )  4. Watch a movie or docu-movie about a poet ( Bright Star , Sylvia , etc. My suggestion here )  5. Attend a reading  6. Take part in a reading  7. Record some poems to send to your family or friends  8. Buy a poetry collection, or more (choose indie bookstores whenever you can!)  9. Take poetry to work (delight your colleagues!) 10. Buy some chalk and write your lines in the streets (be a street poet!) 11. Leave some poems in a cafe for others to read 12. Buy a poetry journal 13. Suscribe to a poetry journal 14. Write a letter or an e-mail to a poet you ...

So, it's real. After two years of hard work the Nuova Antologia di Poesia Americana  (New Anthology of American Poetry) has been released by Edizioni Ensemble. The idea came to me as I was researching information for the biography of the Poet , as I often enjoy to call him. This bio has been an extraordinary experience that has allowed me to get in touch with poets who have met Jack from the late Fifties till today. Getting to know them has also meant getting to know their amazing poetry and I am so grateful to all for having allowed me to translate some of their beautiful poems. Let me introduce you to the poets and poems included in the Anthology. Clicking on each poet's name you will be able to learn more about their life and their poetry: John Brandi - A Rose for Lorca - Architecture of An Instsnt - Time Is Short John Brandi Alvaro Cardona-Hine   - Amnesty - Years of Love - The Enthusiasm of Illusion Alvaro Cardona-Hine Terri Carr...

I must say that as much as I have always admired prose poetry, I have never tried writing any because it seemed to me that I had no real skills at it. But, last weekend I suddenly recalled episodes from my childhood in the 70s, specifically memories of the  Years of Lead in Italy and of my father, and I ended up writing one. I sent it to my poetical sister, Michelle Reale , whose prose poetry is magical, so much so that I often return to read her collections because I can't have enough of them and I love wandering in her soulscapes for a long, long time. I wanted Michelle to honestly tell me what she thought of it. Her reply made me incredibly happy. She wrote: Sorella, this is outstanding, and let me tell you why: it is highly evocative, and imagistic. It feels incredibly satisfying in this form, and, I dare say, you are quite adept at this form, which is truly my favorite! For me, an as exemplified by Seventies Blues, you encompass a whole world here. This poem made me want ...

February 11th is a date I cannot forget, being the death anniversary of two women poets I truly love. Sylvia Plath 's death makes of her an iconic martyr immolating herself on the altar of Pain. Reading about her death and her last few acts before sealing the kitchen's door inspired one my poems, " Milk and Bread ," that was first published by editor Cooper Renner in elimae and that can be read in my They Talk About Death chapbook. I am certainly not the only poet who was inspired by Sylvia's death. Thomas Rain Crowe wrote a beautiful poem--"Poem for Sylvia Plath Without Even Lighting the Stove"-- on the subject that you may read here and so did Tania Pryputniewicz in her " Sylvia III ," from her November Butterfly collection. Amelia Rosselli was one of Italy's best women poets. I have always admired her craft in writing her lines in either Italian, English or French. Her mother was English and her father, Carlo Rosselli, was a famous...

Favorite Bedtime Stories by John Fitzgerald (Salmon Poetry, 2014) is a book of poetry that grabs the reader with the sinuosity of a leopard. It has a subtle way of penetrating in the pores and, much like the poet himself states, “I am poet and cannot explain” what makes this “voice like dirt” so intoxicating. “Where I am men hide , ” seems to me the perfect key to understanding the subtleness at play. And no, it’s not up a tree with the leopard, but in the leaf that we are turning, in the traces Fitzgerald so skillfully disseminates along the pages. “I am coiner of words , ” he says, and of tales I shall add. Reading this collection one moves swiftly from apes and wild beasts, to the fifteen poems of The Charter of Effects , an almost philosophical journey in the footsteps of a poet named Likeness (or the Likeness of the Universe) whose Muses are in no way ordinary: Presence is the muse who says she is this very moment. Every night I close the blinds she every m...

If I look at my poetry accomplishments, it seems 2015  has started incredibly well. I have had 4 poems accepted for publication in Menacing Hedge and 2 poems accepted in  The Más Tequila Review . My heartfelt thanks to editors Kelly Boyker and Richard Vargas. I also received feedback from Kristy Bowen that my fifth chapbook, "Love and Other Demons," will be published by {dancing girl press & studio} next year. I am so happy to have a second chapbook published by dgp after Diagnosis , which has been released just 2 weeks ago. Thank you to all of you who have purchased it already. I hope some more of you will follow the hare in this Plath-inspired chapbook. My translations into English of a selection of poems by my fellow RBP poet Marco Cinque has just been published by CC.Marimbo Press in California. The book's title is At the Top of My Voice . The New Anthology of American Poets that I have edited and translated should be released by February, or anytime soon. I h...

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...