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Poetry Canadian

The Flower of Youth

The Pier Paolo Pasolini Poems

by (author) Mary di Michele

Publisher
ECW Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2011
Category
Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781770410480
    Publish Date
    Sep 2011
    List Price
    $18.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770901063
    Publish Date
    Sep 2011
    List Price
    $12.95

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Description

 

The poems in The Flower of Youth depict the coming of age and into sexual difference of the great writer and film director, Pier Paolo Pasolini. The time of this story is World War II; the place is German-occupied northern Italy. Unlike his younger brother, Guido, who took up arms to fight in the resistance, Pasolini chose to help his mother set up a school for the boys, mostly sons of farmers, too young to fight or be conscripted. The situation ignited an internal war that nearly eclipsed the historical moment for the young Pasolini, a battle within between his desire for boys and his Catholic faith and culture.

The book is a kind of novel in verse including a prologue and epilogue that details di Michele’s search for Pasolini, her pilgrimage to the place and research into the time that shaped him as a man and as an artist.

 

About the author

Awards

  • Short-listed, A.M Klein Prize for Poetry

Excerpt: The Flower of Youth: The Pier Paolo Pasolini Poems (by (author) Mary di Michele)

 

Vietato (A Town Called Forbidden)

 

After the hum of the transatlantic jet
the earthbound jerk and rattle of a train
pulling in and out of small town stations
en route Venezia — Udine —
there’s the heat of the sun high
in a May sky, there’s the haze
of humidity or my sleepless eyes
see now as if submerged
underwater, I understand
nothing, not the time of day,
not the names of towns:
Salice, Pordenone, Vietato
Vietato, not the name of a town at all,
but a warning sign, Forbidden
as if this flat and sun-lit terrain could take me
back to the prairie, to Saskatchewan,
where a town called Forbidden
might join one called Forget.
I was bound for Beyond History, a conference at the university
in Udine but later I hoped to find a village called Casarsa though I
had no idea how to get there, so when I saw Casarsa delle Delizia as
one of the stops printed on my train ticket, it felt like a gift. The first
of many I was to receive.
A beautiful day, full sun, breezes making it feel almost cool,
although how can it be cool at 28°C? I’m now staying at a hotel
in Casarsa called Al Posta; it’s near the post office. I take tea in the
garden, at a table shaded by a tree. I breathe deeply and the air
smells green and tastes almost sweet. I listen.
Your music,
oleander and mosquito,
muted in May.
I would lose the latter part of that duet.
Ah, but what is it if
it cannot pierce, if
it cannot get under your skin?
I hear him whispering,
“Such music’s emasculated.”