Poetry going urban: second poetry workshop kicks off

That poetry is work to be done in solitude is only a half-truth, an adage that has long justified the absence of shared places where confrontation with poetry, through poetry, is possible.
The workshop Poetry that makes itself a city, in this second edition, once again aims to offer to the citizens of Milan and neighboring municipalities - and to anyone who wants to join us - a place for dialogue and transportation, with the intention of seizing in the tradition of poetry an opportunity for movement, within oneself and in the contexts in which each of us tries to live. It is not meant, therefore, to be a place where one can learn to write in order to amaze or to surprise, nor where one can exercise one's own sad narcissism; but a center of exchange and relationship among lives in writing, among people who have found -- or hope to find -- in the discipline of the art of the poetic word and in its listening, and in its continuous choral exercise, a chance to "say" to each other in an unprecedented wholeness. This is why it was chosen to circumscribe the workshop to a maximum of 20 participants, so as to ensure real active participation by all and everyone, as well as constant attention to the textual works that will gradually be put in the pipeline.

This is also why, in continuity with the previous year, the workshop will be built in an alternation of two sections. On the one hand, a series of lectures curated by Paolo Giovannetti; on the other, a calendar of sessions of discussion and joint work, curated by Tommaso Di Dio. In the lectures, the participants will have the opportunity to listen to lectures by lecturers, scholars and scholars, on particular aspects of the history and technique of poetry; in the workshop, instead, they will try to take up and unfold those suggestions by placing them in a living, dialectical confrontation with each other's journey. The dialogue of the female and male students, with the reading of each other's texts, will alternate with concrete proposals of contemporary poetic examples. Finally, the writing journey of the participants will be witnessed by a volume of poems selected during the course, which will have the opportunity to be publicly presented to the city.

Every city has its walls and its gateways, its spaces of passage, its prohibitions and its circles, its points of return; so is poetry, which, like every city, is a place that hosts multitudes, allows differences to pass through and within the plots of shared language knows how to welcome the breath of each.

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Twenty people will be admitted to the course through selection. The selection will be carried out by the course management and the secretariat.
Applications should be sent, by 12:00 noon on April 26, 2023, via e-mail, to [email protected]
To the e-mail, a word file should be attached, with the following data:

• biographical information (first name, last name, date of birth, telephone number, email);
• a self-presentation of no more than 2000 characters (including spaces);
• a selection of no more than five texts (poems or short prose) deemed useful for the artistic characterization of the application.

The committee will finally draw up a ranking list, and admit the top 20 candidates to the courses. In case of waivers, the first of those excluded will be drawn progressively. The procedure will be completed on April 29, 2023.

These are the dates of the meetings:

• Lecture 1: May 3 (L) - Room 414, IULM 4
• Lesson 2: May 10 (Paolo Giovannetti, IULM) - Classroom 414, IULM 4
• Lecture 3: May 24 (L) - Classroom 414, IULM 4
• Lecture 4: May 31 (Sabrina Stroppa, University of Perugia) - Classroom 414, IULM 4
• Lecture 5: June 8 (L) - Classroom 414, IULM 4
• Lecture 6: June 14 (L) - Classroom 116, IULM 1
• Lecture 7: June 28 (Italo Testa, University of Parma) - Classroom 117, IULM 1
• Lecture 8: July 5, at the Trotter (Gabriel Del Sarto, lecturer and trainer
• (Summer break)
• Lecture 9: Sept. 13 (L) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 10: Sept. 20 (L) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 11: Sept. 26 (Alberto Bertoni, University of Bologna) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 12: Oct. 4 (L) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 13: Oct. 11 (L) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 14: Oct. 18 (L) - Classroom 121
• Lecture 15: Oct. 25 (L) - Classroom 121

All classes will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Lesson 8 will be held at the Poetry House Association at the Trotter.

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