The path of comets. 2002

“Poetry, passing through the eye of a needle of a syllable, or inserting itself into a torrent of words, taking advantage of a silence or a cry, of a page or of the hall of a conference, adds to life, in the most unpredictable ways, what it lacks: and for which we are unconsciously thirsty”. These are the words of Gianna Manzini, in the margin of a portrait by Ungaretti. We started from a similar idea: the world is still unconsciously thirsty for poetry. Today, perhaps even more than yesterday, a communication that avoids the daily banality of television, the chatter often painted with vulgarity and sufficiency, is felt to be necessary. We thought that this need must be answered. And books are not enough, almost clandestine readings in solitary rooms. Poetry can be a place, even a physical one, of meeting. It is voice, presence, palpable emotion that materializes in the words, faces and gestures of the poets. The path of comets was born from the desire to bring poetry to people. To free verses from the chains of school anthologies, academies, ivory towers. We believe that literature must always be civil, and that it can be both cultured and popular. May it be true communication, which addresses the depths of everyone and is capable of speaking together about the everyday and the universal, the private and the history of the world. The path of comets (the title is taken from the verses of the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva: “Since the path of comets / is the path of poets”) brings poets of different traditions, languages ​​and cultures to us. The event therefore aims to be not only a very important cultural event, but also a moment of meeting and friendship between peoples and cultures. It is precisely through the language of poetry that an authentic circulation of ideas and knowledge is possible, an exchange between distant and different worlds. Poetry can help integrate and overcome differences. It can help us understand that there are no insurmountable borders or obstacles that prevent us from understanding the reasons of others. We believe the words of the poem serve to give hope to our future. More simply to give us a future. But we can say this better through the verses of Izet Sarajlic, the great Bosnian poet who was already a guest of the first edition of these international poetry meetings and who will also accompany us in this new adventure: Except for the future, poetry has no ally, / and today, coincidentally, most of all we are lacking in the future".

Program

2/3/4 May 2002 Cloister of San Francesco / Capitular Room / Gramsci Room PROGRAM Thursday 2 May 2002 7.00 pm Video Space "Pier Paolo Pasolini. The confessions of a poet" "Pasolini meets Ezra Pound" 8.00 pm "The voices of poetry" (V. Majakovskij, P. Eluard, G. Apollinaire, T.S. Eliot, D. Thomas, F.G. Lorca, S. Esenin, A. Artaud, ...) 9.00 pm Reading Jorge Enrique Adoum (Ecuador) John Giorno (United States) Ledo Ivo (Brazil) Tomaz Salamun (Slovenia) Giacomo Trinci (Italy) Friday 3 May 2002 7.00 pm Video Space "United State of Poetry" (A. Baraka, J. Brodsky, S. Cisneros, L. Cohen, W. Coleman, R. DOve, L. Ferlinghetti, A. Ginsberg, C. Milosz, L. Reed, D. Walkott, etc.) 8.00 pm "The voices of poetry" (P.P. Pasolini, S. Plath, A. Ginsberg, P. Neruda, J.L. Borges, L. Hughes, J. Kerouac, R. Frost, G. Corso, E. Pound, ...) 9.00 pm Memory of Izet Sarajlic Reading Robert Creeley (United States) Lance Henson (United States) Ivo Machado (Portugal) Paolo Ruffilli (Italy) Christiane Veschambre (France) Saturday 4 May 2002 7.00 pm Video Space "Ungaretti's rivers" Carmelo Bene: "Good! 4 ways of dying in verse" (Block, Mayakovsky, Esenin, Pasternak) 8.00 pm "The voices of poetry" (M. Benedetti, J. Gelman, P. Thomas, A. Baraka, J. Cortez, M. McClure, ...) 9.00 pm Reading Sinan Gudzevic (Serbia / Croatia) Hawad (tuareg) Juan Vicente Piqueras (Spain) Vivienne Vermes (England) Carmen Yanez (Chile) ____________ Musicians: Maurizio Carbone (percussion), Marco Cinque (native flutes), Riccardo Morpurgo (piano), Martin O'Loughlin (didgeridoo), Paolo Porfiri (plucked instruments).

Information

Municipality of Pistoia Region of Tuscany Porto Franco Project Province of Pistoia Pistoia Theater Association Thanks to: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Brazil Embassy of the Republic of Brazil in Italy Istituto Brasile - Italia (IBRIT), Milan Polish Institute of Rome Pen Club Slovenia Ministério da Cultura and Istituto Português do Livro e das Bibliotecas (Portugal) Teche - Rai Archives, Rome Washington Square Film, New York