di Matilde Baiesi
“When I toast to folly, I toast to my own self”. This statement encapsulates the essence of Alda Merini’s self consciousness and irony. Active until a decade ago, she was “one of the most truthful Italian poets” – according to the scholar Franco Loi.
Flower of poetry is an accurately-selected anthology of her most famous and mesmerising poems, written between 1951 and 1997. The switch from love poems to deeply religious ones, from oneiric lyrics to short, enigmatic aphorisms shows how multifaceted and versatile Alda Merini was.
Particularly moving and relatable are the poems about unreciprocated love. “Set me free, my love,/ from this extremely pecsy pitch,/ that is, the sweat of your death,/ stuck on my flesh.” Or “[…] The illusion was strong enough to sustain us;/ we were rereading each other in hugs/ praying the intentions would last,/ we promised ourselves the “forever” of the lovers,/ […]”.
Quite a few are autobiographical and self-referential, or almost seem to be fully understandable exclusively by the lover she was specifically calling out. She was indeed diagnosed with bipolar disorder and secluded three times in a mental hospital, and precisely from this -although tragic- event beautiful words arose.
The poet’s immense culture is betrayed by the multiple references to the classical world: a poem is entitled Sybil, in another one –Le osterie– she treats the role of wine for the lovelorn the same way Alceo and Horace did, and so on…
Alda Merini was able to condense complex feelings in very brief and concise sentences, like “there are certain nights/ that never/ happen”. Furthermore, she was capable of dealing with delicate matters rather discreetly, yet movingly. For instance, she wrote about abuse “Oh, never did the moon scream so much/ against the offended stars,/ and never did my guts scream as much,/ nor did the Lord look away/ as in that precise moment/ seeing my motherly virginity/ offended in a mockery.”
Alda Merini’s poems are certainly unconventional and hard to interpret at times; however, they represent a milestone in the progress of Italian poetry and are truly meaningful, hence, they are totally worth reading.
MINGOMagazine 