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POETRYETC  2002

POETRYETC 2002

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Subject:

Re: Biography Project

From:

Sonia Lipenolch <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 9 Jan 2002 11:06:02 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (63 lines)

“The cultivated one. Or, like when at the Nation Festival”


The uncommonly cultivated one takes part in the national broadcasts
As a surrogate for knowledge, dressed in a cassock
Derived from illustrations in the encyclopaedias,
In front of the television cameras shows on request
The stigmata on both his hands and offers
Ample explanations for them.

Put to quieten popular discontent with prizes and lotteries,
They have arranged the learned like fat Saints
To taste the warmth of live applauses
Interrupted by witty advertisements.
To the thronging students outside,
Invitations to go away are distributed, unplanned summits
In the Press Room promise mercy and tolerance.

Armed bands of young children are waiting among the cardboard columns
Fir the beginning of their show, leafing through the illustrated brochures,
They arranged explosives under the dish-covers on the buffet
With the full approval of the Safety Committee.
Ready at the disposal of the producer, the electrician puts up
Additional trestles, spacious awnings over the stalls.
The expense seems to induce a sense of Festiveness.

The guard warns the uncommonly cultivated one
about the actual risk of a power-cut.

In the contemplative pauses, bewilderment among the guest-spectators
Required to obey to the many imperatives. Below the stage, in the shadow,
The orchestra of pensioners is dozing, the trombone
Snores, the viola is resting her heard on the shoulder of the
harpsichordist.

The uncommonly cultivated one has no conception of resting so he takes
advantage
Of pauses to compile Errata, to formulate denials, oppressed by the fear
of being misunderstood or taken too
literally.

Flagellants, clerics, prophets, self-confessed offenders stand in orderly
queues
before the make-up room to submit themselves
To the agony of the make-up, the boldest show off their hairshirts and
chalk faces.
Pompous parades in front of the lifts at the end of each shifts.

Ballerinas in lame offer voluntary assistance to the weak-hearted,
Mending arteries, pinning up artificial valves, supporting the heads
Of the nauseated. Levels rise in the spittoons. They almost overflow.
The uncommonly cultivated one glances and moves away with a grimace of
disgust.

In the coming and going of stretchers and trolleys, the broadcast
Secures it audience, pupils dilate, faces crumble. Briefly astonished
In the alcoholic vapours of the video screens, the armed bands of children
Are blue bands of angels, in their dreams glowing cathedral of firework.



Erminia Passannanti, Salerno, 1993.

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