Sardinia, Land and Language 8

On Saturday September 3 Rafaella Marzano and Sergio Iagulli of Casa della Poesie and I flew to Sardinia for their Fall Literary Festival. The banner roughly translates to “New Year of the Poets” because in Sardinia the beginning of Fall after the summer harvest is considered the beginning of a new cycle.

Sardinia is Italy’s second largest island.  Its history stretches back to around 1500 B.C. when the first stone nuraghe were built.

Little is known about the first people who filled the island and built these ancient structures. From the early 9^th or 8^th century BCE there were Phoenician settlements. Because of its location many peoples came and with lesser and greater success colonized the island. There were Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Corsicans, and even the Australians briefly colonized it.  Now they have an architecture that reflects the many cultures that invaded and fought for this land and Sardinian, Catalan and Arabic are still spoken in some areas of the island along with Italian. No wonder then that it would become the home of a now 18-year-old annual international literary festival: Cabudanne de Sos Poetas.

We were told that the city of Senghe was about a thousand years old and the guest house where we were comfortably housed was at least three hundred years old. 

The historic of Seneghe with its stone houses and cobblestone streets is turned over to poetry during its annual literature festival. 

There are poem excerpts on the walls of cafes, stores, and hanging from trees.

This above poem excerpt is from a poem titled “Like Leaves” that speaks to the leaves of trees that grow, fly on the wind and eventually fall to the ground as humans also do.

Here is a very rough translation of the poem below:  The knowing how to live of men  is not the one of the trees and men are wrong in thinking that trees are ignorant of death.

And of course, a full wall of poem excerpts was in the Home of Poetry where the writers and festival staff gathered for savory lunches and dinners. Below is my favorite one:

“I prefer the ridiculousness of writing poems to the ridiculousness of not writing.” Wislawa Szymborska

The festival was from August 27^th through the 4^th of September although I was only there for the last two days.  In my short time there I met a Turkish novelist Tuḡbah Doḡan  who newest novel was recently translated into Italian, Il Bistro delle Delizie (The Bistro of the Delights), and a prose poet, Franca Mancinelli, whose work was translated from Italian into English. She gave me her newest book, The Butterfly Cemetery. I have only read a bit of it, but it promises to be an engaging read. I also attended a discussion with a journalist and photojournalist, Giulio Piscitelli and Sabato Angieri, who had recently been in Ukraine.  They spoke of the difference between news and propaganda. They also talked about how American press had deep pockets and would pay to get through checkpoints while they had to rest on their laurels as true journalists who were seeking truth and did not come with another agenda or come with thick wallets.  We closed out the night of the 3^rd with a concert by Nilza Costa, a Bahia born vocalist who sang songs of the orisha, racism in Italy and love melding African and Brazilian rhythms.  It was a spirited and spiritual performance.

I did go to an afternoon poetry reading on the 4^th by Giovanna Frene, but I am afraid my meager Italian did not give me much room for appreciation of that or the days other offerings.

My reading closed out the festival at 10 PM.  I was reading from my book A Braccia Aperte/With Arms Open and was well received.

 The audience asked for an encore when I finished and, luckily, we had another poem to project onto the screen.  Again, I signed books and spoke to audience members.  One of my favorites was a young man who felt that I was not only the strongest performer in the festival but one of the best poets he had seen in his entire life!  He then informed me he was only twenty years old. He and I had a good laugh.

After my reading, a mix of music from Italian popular groups, the Eurythmics, Whitney Houston, Donna Summers and others filled the air as wine was poured and there was dancing under the trees.  Rafaella, Sergio and I walked the half mile up the cobblestone streets to our guest house and retired to our rooms ready to be back on a plane the next day, bound for Naples.  The next show was on the 7^th of September in Oliveto Citra, a small, history and art rich village high on a hill reached by driving a twisted narrow road.