Jamie McKendrick

Its good to see Jamie McKedrick's regular additions to the poetic flow from Liverpool, I got this copy of his latest collection during last October's Durham Book Festival. I enjoyed his: First and Last, The Judgement, and above all - Ethics & Aesthetics -

ETHICS & AESTHETICS

When Franco had Aranguren
the Professor of Ethics
in Madrid
fired
for his involvement in student politics

Barcelona's Professor of Aesthetics
the poet Valverde
resigned with a note that read
nulla aesthetica sine ethica

- gesture and word so wed
they twisted an Either/Or
into a well-knotted
ampersand

and fastened a rope bridge across a chasm

There are lighter moments too, not least in a witty collection of micro-poems, the last of which:

OUCH

It takes genius to make a language,
to draw nails out with your teeth.

Jamie McKendrick is dentally blessed...… (more)

Twentieth century Italian poets are largely unknown, barring a few names such as Eugenio Montale (1896 – 1981), who was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor, translator and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975, and who came to hold the same level of importance as T. S. Eliot did within his own culture as well as internationally. Then there’s Salvatore Quasimodo (1901 –1968), also a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1959), and is considered alongside Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888 –1970) as one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century. Then what? D’ Annunzio?(Gaetano Gabriele D'Annunzio-1863 –1938) better known nowadays as the precursor of the ideals and techniques of Italian fascism and for his strong influence on the ideology of Benito Mussolini (although never directly involved in fascist government politics in Italy) for which he has acquired a certain infamy.

Jump forward to recent times, say the last twenty odd years, and there has been an improvement, a breach in this lack of curiosity, a slight awakening from the world of English language to this nation’s verse, brought about by the publications of translated books by the likes of - Cesare Pavese, Attilio Bertolucci, Primo Levi, and Bartolo Cattifi, yet even these - outside certain circles - have varying levels of success, or critical notice.
Another issue that can confuse & bewilder the individual entering this world for the first time, can be the degree of division within its sphere – “Italian poetry has as many different schools and factions as it’s politics has Parties – I Crepusculari, Hermeticism, Gruppo 63, etc.”. Which is where a broad based Anthology such as this can help, it sides with no particular group or faction, it merely offers an overview and as such can introduce - even if on a basic level - you to a whole new world of verse.

http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/faber-book-of.html… (more)