Anthologist: Sergio Roic
Translator: Konstantinos Moussas
Preface: Marko Miladinovic
Postface: Lilia Tsouva
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Noè Albergati, Laura Accerboni, Lia Galli, Margherita Coldesina, Laura di Corcia, Jonathan Lupi, Mercure Martini, Marko Miladinovic, Pietro Montorfanni, Franco Barbato, Andrea Bianchetti, Vanni Bianconi, Rodolfo Cerè
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Preface
The poets featured in this anthology are mainly active in the regions between Italophone Switzerland and Italy. They come from various categories of professions – university researcher, chef, journalist, artist, professor, actor – yet they all have something in common: they were all born in the ’80’s, and some of them were already featured in the volume “Non Sera Soltanto Passione – Generazione degli Anni 80” (It wasn’t merely passion – Generations of the ‘80’s), edited by Andrea Bianchetti and published by Alla Chiara Forte in Lugano, in 2018.
It was that very publication that established what several journalists dubbed the “’80’s group”. The selection of poets that formed this group stands as a point of reference and a significant part of them is also featured in this anthology.
Marko Miladinovic
Postface
Just living is not enough” said the butterfly
One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Anthology of Young Italian-Speaking Swiss Poets – yet another wonderful book of Vakxikon Publications from the series of anthologies of young poets – takes us on a journey to the verdant and waterlogged areas of central Europe. The south side of Switzerland features Italian-speaking poets who were born mainly during the 1980’s. Their poetry is existential and social, reflecting the current climate of disenchantment and the need to redefine the essence of Mankind under these new political and technological conditions.
The poetry of Italian-speaking Swiss poets revolves around coexistence; it is anthropocentric and connected with development on both a European and worldwide level. It focuses on everyday life and particularly the complex mesh of relationships, stigmatizing our morally unbalanced society and deconstructing our world with allusions, brutal language, unconventional linguistic manipulations and terms derived from the fields of TV, cinema and technology. Their platitude is intentional.
Their poetry, which is mainly visual and narrative, employs ancient myths and old symbols viewed under a new perspective. The images illustrate the bacchanalian spirit of our age, the quality of a grotesque and decaying world. As the Chiasso-based Marko Miladinovic writes: “People are free to not be people”.
Outside there are children with drums
Girls and boys dancing under the large tents.
Girls and boys playing music and eating
They eat
Fried fish, rolls, roast chicken
licking their fingers
some have intercourse
We listen to everything from afar
We are you, I and her.
Andrea Bianchetti
Poetry’s fate is inescapably aligned with the fate of the times. The constant decline of values in our time and age affects the Italian-speaking poets of Switzerland; their elliptical verses and fractured expressions reflect the living conditions of the contemporary man. On the other hand, the diversity of their expression unites lyrical voices with surreal endeavors and existential pursuits. The atmosphere it builds is captivating.
The overwhelming and invective language of Italian-speaking Swiss poets is consistent with the overall mood of doubt and opposition that is apparent in art on a worldwide level. Poets castigate the structures of modern life; they deny our aphasic society and denounce the austerity forced upon the younger generation, brought by the policies of the European Union. As it would be expected, they also denounce war:
Yesterday the tallest kid
put a rock
between its teeth
and began to chew.
This way, it proved to its mother
what the mouth is capable of
if it comes to that
and how a ruined house
is just a ruined house and nothing more.
Yesterday, all the tallest kids
left the enemies without food
and picked up their toys in a hurry.
They proved to their mothers
the order
and discipline of the dead
Then they ran to wash their hands
and listen to the news
to rock them to sleep.
Laura Accerboni
The poetry of Italian-speaking Swiss poets paints a picture of the deeply sick world that gave birth to the alienated Man of our times. Rodolfo Cerè from Zürich believes that “the language of the future stems from the kiss”; Noè Albergatti, born in 1990 (one of the youngest poets featured in the anthology), in his revision of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, refers to “the labyrinth of wasted years” and recounts “small acts of conceitedness” and wounds from the “sharp/ horns of brash words”, finally confessing that “nothing remains in the end but black veils”.
Chaos, entropy, asphyxiating routine: the crucial mystery of our age is Man itself. The charms of the past lie in ruins. The social group is no longer a bearer of ideology; instead, it has transformed into an economic and political body, whose only ideals are materialism and rigid competition. “All gods are dead” prophesied Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What we need now is to ascribe a spiritual meaning to the world. Philosophy tries to provide this depth by investigating the general principles of nature and society. Poetry, however, does an even better job; after all, poetry is what gives essence to the fundamental ontological and social experiences of Man. Only poetry is capable of crafting worlds.
The Italian-speaking Swiss poets, with their refusal to adopt the forces of egoism, which have built a world intoxicated with material goods but lacking in humanity and meaning – our world – are like droplets of dew, capable of washing away the dust from the world.
With dewdrops dripping I wish
I could somehow wash this perishing world.
Matsuo Bashō, 17th century
Lilia Tsouva