We, the people of poetry, to assert sincere confidence, the expression of calm fascination, the clear joy, the burst of limpid passion, the organization of diurnal intensity of approach, the ussage of quiet rustling-touch, and full breath, decide and define this

Constitution of Republica Poetica

1. Poetic status

a) The poet is the state of trans-sovereign state, independent unitary and indivisible

b) Form of government-state status is poetic republic.

c) The poetica is an aesthetic, social and democratic state where human dignity, rights and freedoms of citizens, the free development of personality, justice and poetic pluralism is supreme and guaranteed values.

2. Sovereignty

a) Trans-national sovereignty belongs to the poetic state that exercise it through formulation and delimitation carried by explicit language.

b) No group or person may exercise sovereignty on their own.

3. Territory

a) The Poetic territory is primarily an inner territory.

b) State borders are established by textual definition, respecting the principles and generally accepted rules of untextual poetics.

c) The territory is organized administratively in poems, poets and poetry. Some poets are declared laureate.

d) Throughout poetic territory don t live persons but their states.
4. Unity and equality

a) The state foundation is poetic unity of states.

b) The poetic is the common and indivisible state of all attitudes irrespective of race, nationality, ethnic origin, language, religion, sex, opinion, political adherence, property or social origin.

5. Citizenship

a) Poetic citizenship is acquired, retained or lost in conditions of dynamic poetry.

b) Citizenship may not be withdrawn to anyone and is assumed by own responsibility. Poetics citizens are resposable towards themselves and can be made liable only for the acts of those around them.

6. Right to identity

a) Republica Poetica recognizes and guarantees the right to preserve and develop emotional and expression of their cultural, linguistic and religious to persons belonging poetic minorities.

b) The protection measures taken to preserve the republic and emotional expression of minorities’ must comply with the principles of equality and discrimination in relation to other citizens poetry.

7. Poetics abroad

a) The Republic supports the strengthening of links with poetics outside the borders of the country and working to preserve, develop and express their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity in compliance with the laws of the State whose citizens they are.

8. Pluralism in poetic society
a) Pluralism in society is a poetic condition and safeguard Constitutional democracy.

c) Poetics are constituted and operate in conditions of absolute freedom. They help defining and expressing the will of citizens, respecting national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the principles of poetic democracy poetic.

9. Transnational Relations

a) Poetics maintain and develop peaceful relations with all countries and, in this context, relations of good aesthetical neighborhood, based on poetry and the other principles generally accepted in contemporary society.
11. Contemporary society

a) The Poetic State undertakes to fulfill in good faith its obligations in poetic and aesthetic treaties to which it is a part.

b) Treaties ratified by the inner court are part of private poetic.

12. Poetic Symbols

a) The poetic flag is a language flag. Its distinctive signs mean assuming responsibility of poetic discourse.

b) Transnational day of poetry is / can be any day.

c) Transnational anthem of poetry is the poem.

d) The coat of arms of the country and seal are established by poetic forms.

13. Official language
Any language used in communication between people and even the natural or invented languages are official languages in the Republic of poetics.

14. Capital

Poetics Capital is internal, personal and multiple external manifestations.

15.Diplomacy

Embassy of poetry in France is at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris.

She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2006. Her first collection, Public Dream, was published by Picador in 2007. She has worked as a bookseller, a secretary, a writing tutor, and a snowboarding instructor, and has reviewed poetry for publications including the TLS, theGuardian, and the Yorkshire Post.

This is the poem Pinsky choose to read and comment for Slate Magazine

There was a man of double deed,
Who sowed his garden full of seed;
When the seed began to grow,
‘Twas like a garden full of snow;
When the snow began to melt,
‘Twas like a ship without a belt;
When the ship began to sail,
‘Twas like a bird without a tail;
When the bird began to fly,
‘Twas like an eagle in the sky;
When the sky began to roar,
‘Twas like a lion at my door;
When my door began to crack,
‘Twas like a stick across my back;
When my back began to smart,
‘Twas like a penknife in my heart;
And when my heart began to bleed,
‘Twas death, and death, and death indeed.

Francesco sent me poetry by Fabiano Alborghetti from Italy. 

I

Then her son got lost, suddenly in the square

among the crowd there’s a new space where he stood:

and no one who knew, no one that had seen

a t-shirt with purple stripes, his red cap on his head.

What do you know of the fright I got she shouted right in his face

what do you know of a mother being crippled

what do you know she repeated of the most terrifying ideas

and hands on his shoulders she shook him like a rag.

What do you know of all I’ve given up for you

of the pain of giving birth which splits your faith

what do you know of body against body making room in those months

for the space you claim, what do you know 

you know nothing: of life that changes and time

that gets lost

shrinking to disappear and disappearing takes you with it

it flows from year to year and sees your becoming.

What do you know who are nothing

of my life going to pieces genuflecting every day 

the life you plunder by being ever-present… 

You don’t know the effort it takes to go on

you don’t know that to have you I gave up all the rest

and let’s go home now it’s best

hold my hand tight and I’ll lead you all the way home.
She went on more calmly: Every mother is the memory

of the Christ they tell of, but in fact it’s that mother

who stays in the shadow and dies

who suffers for the death

standing at the foot of every hill…

I

Poi il figlio s’era perso, d’improvviso nella piazza

tra la gente nasce il vuoto dove prima stava in piedi:

e nessuno che sapesse, mai nessuno che abbia visto

la maglietta a righe viola, il cappello rosso in testa.

Che ne sai dello spavento gli gridava in pieno viso

che ne sai di quel dolore di una madre resa monca

che ne sai gli ripeteva delle ipotesi più infami

e con le mani sulle spalle come merce lo scoteva.

Che ne sai delle rinunce

del dolore che nel parto ti divarica la fede

che ne sai del corpo a corpo che nei mesi si fa spazio

per lo spazio che reclami, che ne sai 

che non sai niente: della vita come cambia e del tempo

che smarrisce

si restringe per sparire e sparendo ti risucchia

si travasa in ogni anno che ti vede diventare.

Che ne sai che non sei niente

la mia vita che frantuma genuflettere ogni giorno 

quella vita che depredi perché tu ne sei presenza… 

Tu non sai della fatica che comporta il proseguire

tu non sai che per averti ho rinunciato a tutto il resto

e rientriamo ora è meglio

tieni stretta la mia mano che ti guido fino a casa.
Proseguiva poi più calma: ogni madre è la memoria

di quel Cristo che si dice, ma nel fatto è quella madre

che nell’ombra resta e muore

che patisce la scomparsa

ferma ai piedi di ogni monte…

Poem from

Ruota degli esposti/The Foundlings’ Wheel

(Edizioni Fuoridalcoro, Mendrisio, 2008)

These poems will form the kernel of

Registro dei fragili/The Weaklings’ Register

to be published by Casagrande Editore – Fall 2009

 translated by Anthony Robbins

I searched pretty much for  contemporary Arab poetry. Not always the result  has been pleasing. This time I found it at lest interesting.

At this website I found a lot of egyptian literature. I enjoyed this  poem of a young poet.

Rana al-Tonsi

A Rose for the Last Days

 Rana al-Tonsi

On one foot

like a humiliated beggar I limp

past all the swinging doors

and the flags that are taken down from their masts . . .

The sidewalk was never my friend

but it embraced me those times

when the crying was tough and bitter

In my country

soldiers go to a war

where they never fight

In every coffeehouse or square

under the feet of the sick, the sad and insane

you can glimpse the trace of a rose

thrown into the arms of nurses

in lonely rooms inhabited by wailing,

a rose drawn in blood.

I cannot believe the car has yet to stop

that I fell out of it

like a scream

I know the lift attendant

never jumps off the fences

and that rocks keep wounding me

even though I’ve roamed for too long.

On one foot

death will come

and raise its head

Facing it, I will embrace this man strongly

and strangle all the poems in his hands

I will crush my bones under his hot breaths

My lungs are becoming two tubes

my feet like a battlefield

my heart a noose.

Am I really dead?

Only a while ago

I was smelling that homeland.

poets I have seen performing in Bratislava (as I managed to note) some of the notes are only for the performance in Slovak or German (languages that I’m a bit rusty at)