La Poesia

I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to poetry, but reading up a bit for an Italian poetry exam on Wednesday, I think I'm now beginning to understand a little better why we should all read and ideally write poetry. Professore Bertoni, who takes the class, has written a book which is apparently something of a cult hit on the Bologna poetry scene:

'La Poesia: Come si legge e come si scrive'

'Poetry: How to read and write it'

I'd like to offer an extract:

"A pensarci bene, la lettura (e la ricezione silenziosa, la scansione intima di un'opera scritta) è per noi condizione comunicativa cui non è facile rinunciare: veicolo di memoria acquisita secondo la mappa tracciata del libro, possibilità di rilettura e di reinterpretazione (misurando sulla partitura definitiva del testo la mobilità e la variabilità dei nostri punti di vista e dei nostri cambiamenti interiori), richiesta/dovere di concentrazione assoluta e di lenta, progressiva immersione in una parola che non ci appartiene d'acchito e che siamo anzi chiamati a decodificare, a delibare e a fare nostra a poco a poco, spinta al confronto fra tradizioni e lingue, dialettica storicamente aperta di vivi e morti, vecchi e giovani."

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"Thinking about it, the act of reading poetry (and the silent recitation, the intimate articulation of a written work) is a communicative act which is difficult to renounce: the 'transfer of memory', the chance to re-read and reinterpret (judging the mobility and variation of our points of view and the changes that can be made), the demand for absolute concentration and of gentle, progressive immersion in a word which isn't immediately clear, which we have to decode, deliberate over, try our best at, so that little by little we arrive at the comparisons between traditions and languages, aware of the historical dialectic between the living and the dead, the old and the young."

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Asides from the social/historical imperative to discover the collective 'memory of society', Bertoni also conveys the importance of poetry on more spiritual levels. He describes poetry as a way of combatting the feeling of emptiness, narcissism and the 'disposition to internal silence' rife in the so-called 'postmodern' age. He quotes Russian Nobel prize winner Josef Brodskij:

"poetry is not a form of 'entertainment', and in a certain way it's not even a form of 'art' either. I see it as an anthropological aim, genetic, a linguistic lighthouse. It's evolutionary".

I really like the 'evolutionary' idea. A kind of a fortification of the self; words enter your mind for you to puzzle over and ponder, usually on your own in a quiet space somewhere, and nobody can take away any revelations of understanding that may come with reading. Similarly, if you try to 'perform' your new-found poetic prowess trying to impress on others how much you enjoy Sanguineti's 'Postkarten' you will rightly feel like a pretentious wanker. Seems to be best left for the mind to enjoy.

...And yet I feel the need to put this in a blog. Ha ha ha ha ha...what a pretentious wanker I am.