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POESIS - SERIES

FRANCO  RIZZUTI

SULLE ALI DEL VENTO

(1999),206 pages, size 16x21 cm, € .9,29

POETRY

With an introduction by the E.G.Belli- Publishers

Presented this evening is a "Collection of poems" by Franco Rizzuti, which is for me like refound emotions, and for you the audience, a discovery to share.

These profound emotions, expressed in such a participatory manner, with many human and real components are for me contained in the inspired lines of "Occasioni di Viaggio", which I found in the first part of the work. One finds the sensations and dreams that we shared during sojourns in Greece and North Africa.

This shows the reader how certain times, lived in our lives, and their emotions give the poet inner energy to prepare and express his ideas, in his poetry.

It is also an indication that I would like to illustrate to you, how the poetry structures itself around the reader and the author, following the very same path that the author's thoughts take him.

As well, it is not only my interpretation of these ideas, it is the same Franco Rizzuti alludes to in certain verses: "Da un sogno" page 26) "Si cammina" . . .

Something that could be the inspiration of these thoughts. . . the memories of the previous days gone by . . . serve to draw out "Sulle ali del vento" from the subconcious; traces of other emotions, other images, other memories, and the poet's mind (the first person narrator) elaborates on them, changes them around, condenses them, makes metaphors, analogies and thereby produces new feelings.

And like in our thoughts, each line conjures up disappointments, trauma, hope and desire, and in verse thirty-one, new realizations.

This shows us that (especially to those who have made art a part of their lives) poetry is ideas that we view with open eyes, lit by pure reason.

And to avoid that the mix of thoughts-poetry is not only a key to theoretical literature, I invite you to experiment with and try to identify with the work of Franco Rizzuti.

It's a sign directing you to abandon yourself in reading . . .

There is an urgent need in the world today to rediscover dreams and poetry. In today's reality, where the only values seem to be money, power, lies, graft, and the desire of one ethnic group to dominate the other, Man is wounded and pained; torn and alone. All this Franco Rizzuti expresses in the formulation of his work: concisely, truthfully, brilliantly.

Here is something that inspires poetry: expressly artfully feelings, anxiety, worries (both personal and collective) to guide us on our way beyond life's hardships, (to allay suffering both personal and human) and to try to create Beauty.

Strange destiny, that of the poet, who carries the burden (at times) -his verses offered to others- the responsibility to to outline this path.

We, as outsiders, who often aren't able to harmonize our feelings, neither with reason nor instinct, (far from any spiritual dimension), we are unable to express our own internal poetry to give life and substance to our ideas.

Franco Rizzuti, like other poets, offers this message, in his own personal language, with simple and prosaic words, and moreover, he captures in his lexicon varied terms, in the literary tradition, expressed in his own unique rhythm, light yet pressing, like the beating of his heart.

It is in this very beating of his heart that I discovered (already foreseen) in his "Poema amoroso" in the second part of the collection.

This amorous theme, this most intimate delay, recalls the fragments of tormented memories, of a love that could be and never was, that only poetry can elevate and be, that which often reality only disappoints or half fulfills.

It is this, another component of the poet, who utilizes subconscious instinct and expresses in his poetry the basis of feelings, and as such nurtures our thoughts.

Singing in these verses of this possible love, F.R. delicately shows us his soul, that of a man/poet who knows how to nurture our impossible dreams, without shouting or force.

He talks of a love which any person could relate to, in the hopes of making possible a love which at times seems impossible: the feeling that each of us finds when two people meet, setting both hearts aflutter.

Here, in the second part of the collection, in a lyrical language, the poet uses a most harmonious rhythm, to the point that the lover seems to lose herself in the real world and become part of the poetry itself.

The lover is not only the "dreamed of" she is "poetry itself": (La musa del sogno, (p. 162)).

And like in a dream, when the face of a person is found surrounded by that of another and the mind is confused and ecstatic, the poet asks: "Who are you?"

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"…Franco Rizzuti's poetry expresses ecstatic images, feelings, passions, pain, torment . . .

His inner landscape is rich and complex, his observations are coloured by the harmony of his world, in a consonance of the most beautiful and evocative creatures of the universe, seen and lived. He finds himself, his very essence, he finds others, his relationship with the world, the mystery of creation and of life ..."

From "Preface" by Mario Iazzolino (Professor of French Literature, University of Calabria)

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