2023-10-29 13:13:45
VIVIAN LAMARQUE in Berlin reads from «Love as an old woman»
The winner of the first Strega Poetry Prize, established in 2023 by the Bellonci Foundation, participated – together with three other finalists of the new literary competition: Silvia Bre, Stefano Simoncelli and Christian Sinicco – in the Zebra Poetry Festival in Berlin, organized by the local House of Poetry. The Berlin House of Poetry is the owner of the most important audio archive in the world of poetry: more than 14 thousand audio poems from over 1500 poets from all over the world, in 90 languages; with almost 23 thousand translations (here is the site). For the occasion, the organizers recorded the audio of each of the 4 Italian poets reading some of their own lyrics taken from the works with which they reached the semi-final of the Strega. Audio that you find in the online media library. In this report we offer you another moment of the participation of Italian poets, with 4 excerpts of their reading in front of the Berlin public. Along with a short profile on each author. For the fifth author, however, you will find the video of his speech at the Strega Poetry Prize award ceremony.
Born in Tesero (Trento) in 1946, Vivian Lamarque has collaborated with Corriere della Sera for many years. You won the 2023 Strega Poetry Prize with «L’amore da nuova» (Mondadori). You have always lived in Milan, where you have taught Italian to foreigners and literature in private institutes. You have published Teresino (1981), Il Signore d’Oro (1986), Poesie giving del lei (1989), Il Signore degli Scarati (1992), Una Quiet Dust (1996). In 2002 her poetic work was collected in Poems (1972-2002). Subsequently you published Poesie per un Catto (2007), La Gentilèssa (2009) and Madre d’Inverno (2016). She is the author of around forty fairy tales and the collections Poems of Ice and Poems of the Night. You have translated, among others, Valéry, Baudelaire, La Fontaine.
Speaking in Berlin for the Zebra Poetry Festival, she transformed the evening into a hilarious meeting, demonstrating how some poets can be not only thoughtful but also self-deprecating, witty, downright funny: “I’ve been writing poetry for seventy years, I can’t stand it anymore”, he joked, before launching into an autobiographical journey. «As a child I read fairy tales and if I didn’t like an ending I corrected them-she said. And if they scared me I corrected those too. Even today I am in difficulty because I correct my books even after they have been published.” She then focused on her ease in falling in love. As one of her poems says «my first love, my first love were two. Because he had a twin and I loved that too…”. And in describing her meeting with the two “men” (they were all still children, she as well as the twins) she made the entire audience laugh.
October 28, 2023 | 8.23pm
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