Sharing my poetry in Italy was an exhilarating, humbling, exhausting and fruitful experience. This year, given the politics of the globe and the conversations that we share because it is one planet with many peoples, it was especially gratifying.
The first reading was a great antidote to my still jet-lagged body. It was held at an arts high school in Salerno. First, two students did a mini-interview
with me which they showed to the entire gathering a few minutes later. This was followed by the trailer from the 2017 film Cries for Syria for which I had written a poem Syrian tears.
syrian tears from the documentary: Cries for Syria it started with eleven and twelve-year-old boys bold with red spray cans covering walls with graffi ti hinting at a freer spring in Syria only after the tortured and swollen corpses were returned to their parents only after a march with photos of the martyred children only after songs of peace and reconciliation only after marchers offering roses and water to soldiers and chants of “we are your brothers” “we are your family” “we are you” did the government’s bombing begin fi rst simple bombs next bombs infused with chemicals that burnt lungs and skin and eyes smothering children who had not been hit and then the chlorine chocking all the rebels, the elders the mothers the children the people this is Syria today but it is also Gaza, Sudan it is Afghanistan Pakistan at times corners of Iraq it has been Bosnia and Libya and with all the death but not the bombs it is Haiti and the Congo and if we do not find a way to tear the walls of indifference to realize that it is all much closer than we think to create a way to stop it to make our governments stop the carnage it will be us yelling to the sky while pleading where is the humanity? where is the humanity? This was followed by a reading where I read a poem in English and then one of the students in the audience read the same poem in Italian. This was followed by a Q&A and flowers, pictures and thanks. Then came what turned out to be the inevitable questions: How did America elect a man like Trump? Was the progressive movement of the United States resisting in a meaningful way? Will a change be made before he destroys the world?
The next day another high school and then that evening Casa Naima. (Yes, named after John Coltrane’s song Naima) It’s sign roughly translates to an independent bookstore with containers of revolution. The place was packed and the audience quite politically astute. I shared the poem “sizing up the cost of war”
sizing up the cost of war what is left but the shoes shoes scuffed and torn no longer having feet to carry them shoes empty now work boots still bearing mud from the last fi eld that he had plowed with his father empty now red sneakers with white stripes brought back from america by her oldest son given to her youngest both of them immediately running outside kicking the soccer ball back and forth the older ruffling the youngster’s head after a well aimed goal empty now heavy and white they were the first pair of shoes she ever walked in the first she had learned to untie so that she could wriggle out and once again feel the sand sift between her toes empty now his work boots were resoled many times next season he would have bought a new pair or perhaps the season after that but these old ones darkened from the oil had become supple and familiar they knew his feet grasped his ankles and kept them strong empty now she had smiled when he offered the embossed leather pumps made for her in italy from the pattern he had carefully traced around her narrow feet long toes tapered in perfect symmetry empty now regulation boots smoothed by the sand salt crystals seeming to be so much of the desert they had walked the inside soles showing imprints of thick heavy feet empty now 80 and these hand made slippers that were a vanity only a grandmother’s silk flowered kiss that never touched the ground because as her father’s favorite she was still carried everywhere empty now the red heels that she saved for the brown loafers passed down the sandals strapped and tied all empty now the flesh gone the blood gone the legs gone all gone I then was asked how difficult was it to write poems like that. I answered that some poems are written through tears. Following that was a broad discussion about national leaders (notedly theirs, Giorgia Meloni, and Trump) being ignorant as to the value of immigrants and immigration, supporting neofascist ideologies, supporting far right policies, etc. We also discussed feminism, Gaza, and the power and limitations of poetry. It was a good day to be a poet.
thanks for sharing this expereince. Love the poems
Thank you.
Right on to you for carrying it on globally, for not stopping , not remaining distant and comfortable, for connecting the shared horrors, triumphs, passions and aspirations. I’m really really buoyed up by your courage and strength.