Simone Di Biasio,Assenti ingiustificati,Preface by Claudio Damiani

Abstract

Reviewed by: Barbara Carle, California State University, USA

Assenti ingiustificati is Simone Di Biasio’s first book. This volume is introduced by the well-known contemporary poet Claudio Damiani, who accurately explains its novelty and originality, especially for a young poet (Di Biasio was born in 1988). I would like to quote a part of Damiani’s preface in my own English translation:

Who are the ‘Unjustified Absent’? The no longer young? The fathers? […] This is the great thing about Simone: he is a young man who criticizes the world, […] in to which he has just entered, which is all wrong; but […]he doesn’t exclude himself, he puts himself too in this world. […] Si dovrebbe chiedere alle cose/Di cosa hanno bisogno per nominarsi meglio (We should ask things/what they need to have better names). Simone begins in an unexpected place, one which takes us aback: language. (p. 5)

Damiani goes on to quote the title poem, which declares that we are all ‘unjustifiably absent’: qua l’unica pluridecorata è la natura/che impartisce lezioni/a scolari distratti/e assenti ingiustificati.

Thus Di Biasio begins by thinking in depth about the ‘instrument of the trade,’ that which distinguishes us as civilized beings: language. How we use it and are used by it defines, to an extent, who we are. In the current panorama of new Italian poetry Simone’s approach is original and promising.

Assenti ingiustificati is composed of 50 poems, beginning with two texts on one page: Carta d’identità and Connotati e contrassegni salienti. Of these generally impressive poems, 10 focus specifically on language and they are, in this reviewer’s opinion, outstanding: Prodotto interno loro, Meno facile, Perdite, La traduttrice, Analisi del verbo, Assenti ingiustificati, Institutio Oratoria, I versi in piedi, Paroleterapia, and Fra menti. As the titles suggest, they are almost always playful even when serious, inventive and learned. With such qualities they achieve considerable freshness. These poems also possess a historical awareness which is another singular virtue. They give us concrete information about the distinct historical moment in which we live. For example, in Padroni del mondo we read: Hu-Jintao e Obama/i padroni del mondo. A similar instance occurs in Prodotto interno loro, a pun on the economic term: prodotto interno lordo, or PIL, Gross National Product or GNP, an expression often dominating the media of a reform-minded and economically oriented Europe. The advantages of this Europe in the making are not always evident to its various members, especially countries like Italy, Spain, Greece or Portugal for whom reforms have had negative effects. Di Biasio transforms these somewhat vacuous economic terms in a magical way:

Se solo s’intuisse il valore dell’altro,

se ci si vestisse di gentilezza

se ogni giorno ci curassimo appena di un’altra persona

se il Pil si fondasse sul benessere e mai il contrario

si potrebbe bestemmiare gli economisti

impartire loro corsi di aggiornamento sulla scomparsa della moneta reale

This delightful poem then proceeds to ‘reform’ language through poetry. In this manner, we can begin to stop asking things to do more than they are capable of doing. Instead we could merely ask the telephone to only telephone and so forth:

al telefono solo di telefonare

al battito di abbattere

al fiore di fiorire

[…]

e agli uomini di guidare.

At least one of the means of ‘correcting’ the world he criticizes is to use language better and therefore to use everything around us better, especially each other. Language occurs between human beings and the value of family relations is also a part of Simone Di Biasio’s poetic celebration.

The poet’s linguistic experts are certainly found in books and teachers (fu la mia prima/maestra d’italiano/a farmi inciampare dentro al valore della poesia) but also in his grandparents. The book is dedicated to his grandmother, also the focus of the marvellous poem La traduttrice: Nonna Francesca/è una conchiglia a pancia in giù/tutti la accostano all’orecchio/per sentire il fragore di una vita […]Korinne/è la sua traduttrice dal Parkinson/in rumeno e poi italiano/e ha imparato due nuove lingue: il dialetto e il sottovoce,/impronte foniche della nostra sorte.

The other important master of language for the poet is his grandfather, protagonist of one of the most memorable compositions: Institutio Oratoria. The grandfather is seen as a sort of domestic reincarnation of the Roman master of rhetoric, Quintilian: La sua disdascalia/vale quanto un’ ‘institutio oratoria’/perciò mi viene da piangere/su questa maniacale cura del linguaggio […].

Assenti giustificati is a well written-book of poetry, generally speaking. Yet the 10 poems focusing on language truly stand out and are worthy of any classroom or university, of any audience who wishes to learn about the current and excellent state of health of the Italian language despite the enormous challenges of our present age. It is said that it’s enough for a poet to write one great poem in his lifetime. Simone Di Biasio has written at least 10.