Abstract
Reviewed by: Barbara Carle, California State University Sacramento, USA
Domenico Adriano is a well-known contemporary poet and critic. From 1989 until 2000 he maintained a column for Avvenimenti, writing about poetry and poets from all countries, times, and styles. He has codirected several series of poetry for Caramanica and other publishers and has edited many and various anthologies of poetry of different sorts, the most recent titled Dall’alto del Gianicolo vedo i castelli romani Poeti a Frascati 1959–2006, Crocetti Editore, 2007. This is his fifth major collection of poetry after La polvere e il miele (Rome, L’Officina Libri, 1977), Bella e Bosco (Grottamare, Stamperia dell’Arancio, 1995) Bambina mattina (Rome, Il Labirinto, 2002 and 2005 and a trilingual version in Italian, French, and English, Formia, Ghenomena, 2013), and Papaveri perversi (Rome, Il Labirinto, 2008). His books have received many glowing reviews over the years from critics such as Alvaro Valentini, Giuliano Manacorda, Rodolfo Di Biasio, Alberto Cappi, and Cinzia Monti.
As Giovanna Grimaldi wrote in her introduction, the poems tell stories but the ‘narrative here does not accept separation and immediately presents a metamorphical dimension: it replaces comparisons with superimpositions [overlapping], it blends persons and things, present and past, reality and dream. A grandmother is mirrored by a child, the grandmother herself still glows her distant youth. The child is a “giovane spiga” (“spike of wheat”) while the grandmother becomes an “infaticabile albero” (“a tireless tree”), nature is alive and participates in the lives of people’ (jacket flap, translation my own).
This ‘narrative’ is divided into five sections: 1. Tutta ride come il getto di un ramo, 2. Dissolti i suoi novantanove canti, 3. Loro due davanti a me camminano, 4. Il mare s’inginocchiò ai loro piedi, and 5. Volano i pesci all’infanzia dei monti. The five parts are followed by an appendix of sorts containing two short four-line poems titled In serra. The first section introduces the filial theme. Most of the poems focus on the daughter and mother who are both transformed into myth and nature (A furia/di dispensare amore, mia madre/si è trasformata in olmo). In the second section the paternal theme weaves its way into the original filial base. Here too the father is transformed and associated with birds and fig trees (Vidi con mio padre un fico/a strapiombo in un crepaccio). In the third section the grandmother figure joins the other family members (Come mia madre, la madre/di mio padre viveva di niente), by now all transformed into mythological figures belonging to the natural world. Such transformation is particularly striking in the conclusion of the aforementioned poem: Dolce/e quieta la ricordano le amiche,/scura di pelle, in corsa più di un uomo/verso il sole e la campagna/per maritare la vite all’olmo. As the book progresses other poets and friends join this nucleus and in turn merge with nature and the elements, gradually making the transition to the ‘Garden.’
To appreciate what this ‘Garden’ is we must return to this book’s title. Typical of Adriano’s previous works, it is based on a dualism and contains the name of a flower recalling his earlier collection, Papaveri perversi (Poppies perverse), thus confirming his stylistic coherence. Where is the place in question? Where did Goethe sow violets? In the cimitero accattolico of Rome, its non-Catholic cemetery. Here lie John Keats, Shelley, Gregory Corso, Amelia Rosselli, Edoardo Cacciatore, and many other poets and major political figures including Gramsci. It is also called affectionately the Giardino dei poeti or the Poet’s garden. Many Roman writers gather there for readings and visits, especially the group of the review Arsenale (1984–1987) directed by Gianfranco Palmery and Giovanna Sicari. Although the review no longer exists, the Press that published it along with many other major Italian poets and translators does: Edizioni Il Labirinto of Rome.
The book’s epigraph alludes to this place. It consists of lines from the Polish poet Wislawa Szymoborska: Busso alla porta della pietra (I knock at the door of stone), the door of the poet’s garden. The final and most representative poem of the book takes up this theme and focuses on the magnificent tomb of a young Russian girl, Maria Obolensky who died in 1873, at the age of seventeen. The tomb consists of a sculpture of a young girl who appears to be waiting by a semi-open door. The second part of this poem follows (lines 15–28): Chi bussa ora alla porta? Maria Obolensky è giunta qui con il pensiero. Prima di morire dovreste conoscerla, salutare la sua bellezza. Vive al giardino dei poeti dove Goethe seminò violette, fanno compagnia alla sua giovane età Shelley e Keats. Un tempo infinito resta seduta accanto alla sua dimora, i capelli sciolti sulle spalle pensose e sul petto, mani conserte e gli occhi e il viso, lei che aspetta sempre sulla porta del Paradiso.
The first part of the poem develops the metaphor of the house, la casa. Here we also find many other themes dear to our poet. If the poem itself is like a garden, the book is compared to a house. In effect, every book of poetry is a result of the poet’s previous readings of other poets. Thus: Tutti abbiamo contribuito a costruire/questo libro, mattone dopo mattone. ‘We’ have all contributed to constructing this book. The poet himself and all the poets dear to him, concretely represented by a physical place, the Garden of Poets. The other no less important dimension present in the title and in this poem is the filial one. The Goethe referred to is not the famous poet, rather his son. We have seen how family members also populate the poet’s house and garden, how they are transformed into ‘trees’ and ‘spikes of wheat.’
This marvellous book possesses a unity of style along with an understated beauty of language. It draws the reader in without our realizing it. It is perfectly balanced between nature and city, dream and reality, memory and transformation. Domenico Adriano’s Dove Goethe seminò violette is a must for any serious student of Italian literature, for anyone who enjoys poetry and superbly constructed poetic narratives.