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A path of dissemination of culture not only within the large urban centers, but above all in the historical suburbs of the capital, was begun by the Special Superintendency of Rome. The aim is to be able to trigger less structured and more inclusive cognitive processes. From October 7th to December 22nd, literature will be at the center of “Poetry, living language – Intangible and community heritage”, with author readings, concerts and artistic performances. Conceived by the superintendent Daniela Porro, the festival has as its epicenter the Drugstore Museum and the Circuito Portuense, whose director, Alessio De Cristofaro, has curated the contents of the event which will expand up to the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, the archaeological area of Santa Croce in Jerusalem, at the villa of Livia, at the mausoleum of Sant’Elena, at the temple of Minerva Medica, at the arch of Malborghetto. It is no coincidence that the title “Poetry, a living language” was borrowed from Arturo Martini’s essay “Sculpture, a dead language” (Abscondita, 2022): a transversal reversal of meaning as an instrument of knowledge, a social and cultural binder that overcomes generational boundaries.
Among the numerous scheduled events, the “Poetic Questionnaire”, coordinated by Paola Caramadre, Sandra Giuliani, Gisella Blanco and Jonathan Giustini, will be an opportunity to meet some of the protagonists of the Roman literary scene, such as the winner of the Strega Poetry Prize Vivian Lamarque in dialogue with Maurizio Cucchi, Plinio Perilli, Maria Grazia Calandrone, Marco Palladini, Rosaria Lo Russo, Marco Giovenale, Gabriella Sica, Damiano Abeni, Moira Egan, Edith Bruck, Renato Minore, Silvano Agosti, Claudio Damiani, Alessandro Ceni, Annelisa Alleva, Elio Pecora and several others.
Everything is on loan
The writer and journalist Renato Minore has retraced his entire poetic career, contained in the self-anthology “Everything is on loan” (La nave di Teseo, 2021) and accompanied by an illuminating afterword by Simone Gambacorta. From the start, Minore manifests a full vision in the fragment of reality; the individual texts never appear situational, but rather careful micro-investigations placed in an intertextual relationship, so as to recreate a solid context, punctuated by the rhythm not only of the verse, but also of the pauses between the compositions. Giulio Ferroni, who signed the preface to the volume, underlines that this technique, more psychological than literary, is useful for the author to decisively disavow the knowledge produced by experience, and deconstructed by the experience itself: “(…) almost the novel / or the analytical essay of my life”. The verses are emotionally dislocated, vaguely nostalgic almost as if to retrace a Capronian echo still anchored to history, to the collective memory that becomes a personal feature, to the dialogue-analysis with the other poets and with their idealized citadel, to the reflection on the polymorphism of I am of a pessoan nature that affects everything, even private feelings and affections. On the other hand, it is in Leopardi’s pretending of thought that thought, by pretending, creates (or is created) language. And quoting Wittgenstein: “What can be shown, cannot be said”.
The minimal self
Contradictions, contrasts, palinodies, oxymorons and slight anaphoras that are not always complete alternate between the pages, characterizing Minore’s flat and flowing verses, which establish the stages of an authorial journey rooted in his own experience, although open to a fundamental chorality, with a sometimes dialogic style. He prepares the waiting necessary for the formulation of a story, but with apparently occasional glimpses. Through the multiple subjective microcosms, the charm of everyday life develops the greatness of an overall vision, although never unitary. It seems like we’re talking about the world, but at the end of each text you have the feeling of finding yourself face to face with your own self, more solitary than you could imagine: “(we both love the smallest thing in the foreground: / but you want to zoom in say knowing, not recognizing)”, he specifies in parentheses “for Ennio Flaiano”, about whom with Francesca Pansa he also wrote “Ennio the alien: the days of Flaiano” (Mondadori, 2022). The “minimal” ego is a changing presence, which gives itself to the other and then cancels itself, which plays hide and seek among similarities, and portrays itself when it seems to stand out, but its most extreme and vital characteristic lies in the ability to portray itself. , between mockery and sadness: “And on that bottom / put what advances”.