A recitative banquet based on materials issued on "nabanassar" website from november 2002 to june 2003; all rights reserved to the authors. Abridgment by Giuseppe Cornacchia and Angelo Rendo, binding by Chiara Nifosì and Michele Maino. Paper edition by Ass Cult Press, Pistoia, Italy, july 2003.

Tradition: The tone really tone is the one that orders you to enter one place, understand it, stop for a while then return to chat of nothing in particular.

Magpie: Here Barabba is.

Drone-eater: Was not he an evangelist? A shoe-shine. A slattern.

Geenna: In my opinion, present-day italian poetry is loathsome. It lacks of revelations, of the world, of rhytms and forms, of glows, of capability in penetration of the human out human and of the human inside human. It lacks of ideas, of passion and cognitive spurs, of structures, of capability to be equal to fiction. It lacks of authors, of brains, of knowledge, of capability to link knowledge to world and literature. It lacks of intensity, of physical dash and metaphysical ambition. It totally lacks of sapientiality, both laical and spiritualist. It lacks of spirit. It’s desert, annihilated by publishing occurrence, that never was a problem to poetry. It’s unrecognizable, dead to ears, less dead than criticism but certainly more than prose. It’s not literary and not vital. It’s not central. It’s loathsome. Apart of few exceptions, italian poets are the hallucination of a nostalgia without reflection in the world.
I’m serious, i’m not joking: italian poetry no longer exists. We may come under several thresholds of rigour (a rigour that, if existing, is full: not philologic or scientist) and say that all is beatiful, all is true, there is hope, poets born in 70es are promising, and so on. This is plausible, as long as we are doing cultural divulgation. But if we invoke serious and absolute reasons to estabilish to what degree a poetic writing is necessary (and necessary is its publication, that is its sharing), then we must raise the threshold of rigour – and say what really remains. Of course: it will be unpleasant, presumptuous, hideous. Mr. Luciano Erba, ineffably ineffable personage, never thought to structure his work: there is no book – nor sequence of books – organized by canons of fundamental rhytmics, beyond text. Zero. There is fun, metrically not at all innovative and well-known already, of mechanical wittiness-shaped pseudoverses. The same can be said about Vivian Lamarque, which i don’t consider a poet though her copies sold. The same can be said about Cesare Viviani, whose emphatic passages can be pleasing at level of literary divulgation, not by absolute rigour. Maurizio Cucchi? By rigour, he’s author of one book only, "Il disperso", after which he’s missing, not arrived. Oh, i’m talking about people i know and they get very angry id told their face: "look, your poetry is fantastic as regards present scene but inexistent as regards poetic tradition. Poetic tradition is the rigour i exactly mean: the one who projects doubts about this ambiguous invocation, should ponder on how a literary tradition arises and i’ll be there, at that ambiguous crossing. I coul go on ad libitum and nearly ad infinitum, as regards the 50es/60es generation (in sense of publishing more than of age). Th, contribution of Giancarlo Majorino? Ridicolous, useless to poetic, social, politic, critic point of view. Sure, as regards his contemporaries, a very good poet: but he will not go down in history of literature. Giovanni Raboni? He stops at "Nel grave sogno", then falling; surely he has not the size (neither european nor world) to assert himself as a worthy poet. To be always on rigour uneven plane, understand: Wallace Stevens or nothing.
Now i say who is safe, in my opinion – we are always on the plane of personal opinion. Andrea Zanzotto is safe, among the living: he is a genius, in my opinion, not fully understood by who glorifies him, critically reduced to a pack of innovative/traditional metrical structures and very trivial common places of pshycoterapeutic matrix. The real problem is the critical corollary that people like Stefano Agosti, moreover admirable for the application in exerting his personal perspective, spreads as a nebula on a text. A text that is not words and references: but a set of strenght and power. Look, please, at the continuous broadcast and/or cathode reference in Zanzotto’s poetry to understand that this genius already gives us the key into the text. As regards the formalistic/structuralist poses, look at rethorical apparatus in a more exclusive manner – i mean the ones out of a trivial reflection about style. Rethoric is persuasion: so, first of all, let’s start arguing less formally (supposing that we do it, because i don’t know what a formalistic critic takes into his head while thinking to perceive shapes) and begin a work of incursion in pure emotivity, that can be defined by conscience, psyche and history coordinates. Are we not able to? Is it a terrific job not presenting rigorous rules? Oh, don’t do it! When a critic will rise, able to manage necessary knowledge to that dealing, we will got a new dimension in academic and publicfalse perceiving of poetic text (and of the poet; the poet; the poet; i do not know how to say it again: of the poet – not of his corpse).
Do we get down from Zanzotto? Let’s do. And let’s pass over an age already archived in literature history. Zanzotto bursts into because of his trilogy first of all, climbing over the enumeration of "La Beltà". Zanzotto outclasses the age i mean now: that is a year: 1976. It’s the pin of the last plausible historicization of italian poetry. Youngs come in! Yippee: youngs’ ideology penetrates into poetry!, by means of a grotesque misunderstanding of the "generation" idea. Yippee! Three come in, in my opinion: Cucchi, De Angelis, Magrelli. Sure, at that time we were full of good, excellent poetry: but Dario Bellezza is not Wallace Stevens at all, in spite of personal tastes. Among the three named, who stands? In my opinion (in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion) not Maurizio Cucchi: that i adore as a poet, i like a lot, i’ve been studying for years – but i’d not propose for the Nobel prize. "Il disperso" carries out an apical roll towars prose and genre literature out of genders, out of psychoanalythic cultural paradigm. But this is matter of critics to come since nobody, now, states that "Il disperso" is an infinite and broadened noir. Eh, you know, there is still the publicfalse perceiving that one thing is poetry, another thing is noir. And it’s just as well, because no one could really think to reason critically around Pinketts. Magrelli chapter: let’s wait for his future steps. Now he’s living in a limbic state. "Ora serrata" was a text that raised perceptive acumen as regards a structural and rhytmic aim exorbitant the book itself: but following texts have betrayed just this perception of his work. Milo De Angelis: in my opinion he is and will be. Zanzotto dead, i’d really propose him to literary Nobel. Sure, in the midst were the scandals in the 80es, the trials for stolen verses, the harsh controversies, the silence, a return appeared incomprehensible to the majority because he was coming back with the same poetry (sometime, the same verses) he left, not maturing, not innovating him self – so they said in the poetry important circles. That is: nothing has been understood about De Angelis’ poetry. As, besides, one of the most international and profound intellectual we have these times, Eraldo Affinati, confirmed in the concentrated and splendid postface to De Angelis’ anthology "Dove eravamo già stati". The critic arguing around Milo requires knowledge and poses out of reach of present day critics. They who know about neurosciences few superficial principles at most, can’t approach the surface of De Angelis’ poetry: and i’m talking about surface only, because it’s a poetry not referable to any perspective, neither disciplinary nor instinctual or of taste. Surely i laugh if, at my age, this is the lot: listening that De Angelis is not able to write, as main objection and sceptical fundamentalism towards "Somiglianze" author. Fuck off people able to write: however, nobody’ll go fucking off, don’t worry, nobody is able to write. Nowadays. Nowadays, ever in my opinion (in my opinion, as said in primary school compositions), in my opinion italian poetry lives, living and very powerful, and very hig in terms of rigour, thanks to three authors’ work. That are, and i state it again: Antonio Riccardi, Stefano Dal Bianco, Mario Benedetti. It’s absolutely necessary (narrators and essayists must realize this: they must awake, as regards this necessity) starting a work of critical mapping of their books. Why is it necessary? Because there is the chance to enter a period of self historicization of literature, so that we can immediately connect to the universe of powers compressed in our so called literary tradition. Here is, in my opinion, the residual opportunity to rebuild a core of cultural society. And saying "residual opportunity" i mean: residual for our time.
About poets born in 70es, that i consider interesting, there is little to say: not for the few or null occasions to be published (it’s a yarn that is necessary to be issued by Mondadori or Einaudi: we are, as regards poetic publishing, in a period like 20es: even a self produced book could be significant). The reason is that it’s flimsy and has not formulated a concrete and rigorous hypothesis of an alternative reading codex yet. So that the general impression is of a great marasma, checked by the wish of breaking down walls and compelling spaces – but it’s not clear which walls and which spaces. And, above all, towards what breaking down. There is the assumption of a courage, vital for literature: the chance of mistaking. Polyphonicity is guaranteed if you read the poetry of born in 70es. It’s the voice that isn’t. And surely there aren’t beginners like Magrelli or De Angelis.
All i said is fast and personal and maybe not much meditated. But i don’t mind: this is an intervention not to beg of reading but wants, from a different point of view, to look at existed and existing, with the obvious disadvantages of time and space in publishing. So, having invoked the critical rigour, i must obviously take back the invocation itself: this is not a critical essay as not as a divulgative or journalistic article.

Angelo: And, establishing the pleasure, pinched the fleece so it got torn. He was ready, the palmar that he didn’t have and didn’t want, in hand because belonged to his friend the obstinate way to get every difficult and clot it in his head, love wasn’t of him because he had capitals and that was his dowry. / Rather bold, not at twenty-six, but like an edible destiny he was ready again to wear feet at his eyes and not to finish the walk. He had to brake but acted like a rich ficus, and it was not the hurry yet because it lacked of the base that makes a triangle figure, and its sides exploded far away and all were there, on the cross. / Ectasy stood shut in sink and was a polyhandling of phrases, so that the convolution of an aspect related to years wal loss so becoming yarn of misunderstanding of nature and having eyes of pure leviathan. A latrine! / He shut in that miserable lumber-room the nails not often pared but not long enough to scratch. He toured smeared and was on the wall like gnat and doctor and junction of something to close, and was not a tale. / When the interpreter discovered the etymology of his soul, he shouted: "…", he wrote "in the sky i dream" and, making quips, looked the cloud flexed suddenly falling with refined feature, darkening him, it was at the pole, it was turned, it was wonderful

Andrea: We were dying like flies: giddiness came by pins – then to backbone: coral, ring, dust. Like snow, illness softly goes on sleepers, to tympanum and apse, where the time has broken – the grace that takes the neck and sheds, discussing the image. The body does not gather squander, the dog does not leave halo, butterflies shelter in head, storm their beauty and muddle my look: they come back in mutter, led by lips to draught. The voice, driven by emphasis, leads breath – and carries it until staggered words, beyond the glade of truth – because breath leads there.

Giuseppe: There was a day i wished to give a proof, / to be able by force to draw in flight: / i placed myself at the window and waited / until a sparrow came: "You’re fixed " / he said, "you don’t gather the right prospect / of the problem. However great / your knowledge is, you lack of stroke, / your burden is this and you must agree / that there is no Farther to certain eyes, nor After; / every man practises an aim / or chooses one’s else he likes / but a man he is and a man he remains, / free to think in a glass / and to busy him self in restricted fields, / never content with a general end / in a manner impossible to upset."

Tradition: We must not speak, we need silence, place stakes; nobody can follow you, nobody wishes to, all hear more than due, now; we need silence, we must not speak, at most softly laugh.

Martino: can you understand it’s this language, and that it’s quickening time? This language, which after so much dread, goes on injuring. I never did else, never was able to do else than wounding, and wound myself. Every word i wrote is a wound. This language will never tell the ash because it whiters all, all the words, all the questions… It will never say anything but dread. This language is undignified. It’s lame, more than any else. Speaking through me, this damned language never did else than perpetrating its crime. It dispossed me of everything , myself included.

Laura: forward, if language is shared, that / on the carpet, / the intermittent light: / it enters the leopard, put / your hands into the sculpture – sand / of this garden, / white stones, / that have a code or name / wear a fur of plastic, / your eyes leopard couloured, / the same / of last night, will pierce the dark / or enter the wolf, / the green around / more and more clasping, the point / where the night exactly filters in the lake.

Drago: Charism is not my strong point at all, you’re right, but in the end who cares about? I don’t want to be a captain, i have no troops, i’m rather lonely, the more i grow old the more i realize i’m ignorant and approximate. It’s right that the centre of stage is occupied by those who deserve it because of their greater study and work.

Gianluca: only being banal, conscious of one’s own lack of originality, of one’s own outlawing (self outlawing), one can glimpse a different communicative singularity so becoming the main enemy of the state as an apolitical inhabitant or, better, marchant-customer not citizen, primitive dealer of his own speed being who, conscious of his common singularity, becomes responsible for his own lack of aim or end (self in-finite, however continuously provisional, precarious). This is – of being common singular – the only perspective probably unbound from every kind of nihilism, the new viewpoint able to free itself from the conceptually obsolete attempt to an unitary reconstruction, that infinitely varied point of view which, driving to effective estrangement, produces the free movement of being, the sprojection in the world variety-truth.

Alessandra: she told me that was a precious find because all the goods were untouched, in there. Out, at parking, trollies blinked in the light of morning like bones of dead elephants and there were black written bars "next customer" all around. We stopped for a while at the edge of parking. She told me that long ago she was a tourist guide in that zone… "here were always tourists… germans, mainly americans…" but nobody was to come here by now and she would have been leaving soon. There was no more authority supervising the area and all the communications were interrupted.

Tiziana: By the absence of signs / sun has not ruined all yet. / There are, on the climb, some zones in dark / some zones of different vegetation of Word. / Can you see how i’m mowing the garden / with the only sharpened rib? / Tomorrow i’ll mow it as i had petals to shell in my mouth. / With a kimono of thin metal / i’ll mow the wheat more sure than a cut-throat. / Not the Flower i’m eating now / to pray from where i am the sun is not enough. / I had to climb. / To be accurate in pain / i just needed to open in the night / to open the flower that opens me now. / By the absence of signs / magnolia is burning here, to the door.

Gugl: the spring that by mouths in square of eleven a.m. / becames gazette between women legs / form kitchen to dome like faults / open to the right of height multiplies the space of / seeing at every step that fertile buttock / stirs the blood down side / the hairless line of the voices with Garibaldi in a circle and / our Anitas around the table being running down / about that thief going / by

Tradition: It’s so, grows, has grown so. There are no words of advent, we’re on high, and it’s not easy to write, continuously scrambling up, then, as climbing down slowly, not shuffling, it’s sufficient to find solid suports and signs. The concomitance of these reduces acidity, mucosas are now the wood of the table on which sheet are placed over sheet; we wait for the arrival of a friend, mucosas will rest; we won’t have to fight, something equal doesn’t force, is similar, we orientate ourself this way. It rises and gets up.

Magpie: Knot: i do not claim to cut nor understand it, i wish a cloth came out so that i can relate to it; no matter it's perfect but acquainting, then we'll improve.

Drone-eater: This is a will, a death already. Magpie, you're dead. Spider knows its ropes better than poacher, to cast a spell, very dead spell but your cloth is nerves made, not up of words; i can't see anything... but a continuous shedding.