by SILVANA LAZZARINO - THE INTERVIEW. A journey to rediscover love and respect for oneself. But also for Mother Nature, within that balance which is the meaning of life
With an introspective gaze aimed at capturing the essence of this existential journey between physical and metaphysical places, where the breath of time stops, Sandro Angelucci poet, essayist and literary critic of great depth and sensitivity, through his verses gives back thoughts, desires a strong but fragile humanity, poised in the constant search for truth between lights and shadows where the strongest does not always win. If the search for truth about life where less and less is open to listening to the other and its integration, is returned by the author gradually turning his gaze to the sky as in the collection "Verticality" in which it comes in contact with the desire of ascent to that point of coincidences where beginning and end overlap, in the poetic work "TITIWAI" just released (Giuliano Ladolfi Editore), the starting point is the central area of the Earth where the first fulcrum of energy is born.
It is from this deep point identified in the caves of Polynesia inhabited by larvae that return brightness, which begins that journey towards the rediscovery of themselves and their original attitudes, far from the power desires of the current society. The light that emits these seemingly insignificant and beautyless creatures (larvae) within these obscure sites is astonishing because it gives the same effect as a starry sky, a sky beneath Earth. From this sky, as suggested by the poet Sandro Angelucci with a strong sensibility, we can start again to discover how behind an anonymous, or less important, appearance can hide an infinite harmony and an amazing richness.
Nature in its infinite faces from the most banal and obvious to those that arouse amazement and wonder is never obvious: every aspect of it must be appreciated, respected, protected and loved. Through this journey divided into two moments aimed at reflecting on the behavior of the man before and after the awareness of a feeling projected to the rediscovery of an authentic listening with what around, we find the ability to love themselves and the infinite horizons and angles of a Nature that shows itself in its various facets of light and shadow, mystery and truth.
Through his elegant and deep verses that resonate like melodies to caress the soul, Sandro Angelucci highlights the wounds inflicted on a mistreated Nature whose cry of pain resounds as a last attempt to save itself and with itself the same fate of the 'man who seems increasingly to respond to his ego. If we return to loving Nature, respecting it and protecting it, we rediscover the beauty of living in harmony with ourselves, recalling our attitudes between quality and weaknesses, and recognizing ourselves as part of a whole with others and with everything around us. If you continue to deface nature by exploiting all its resources to the bone, you kill it and with it the ability to love and love.
Moreover, in several lyrics by the poet Sandro Angelucci "poet of the sparks of love inherent in Nature" there is a warning not to stop at appearances: it is necessary to go beyond a first vision and try to understand what is behind every event, choice, gesture or action.
The title of your book refers to the larvae of caves of Polynesia that return the vision of a starry sky as seen on the cover: a strong visual and emotional image to try to look inside themselves. What did you want to communicate with this image of the larvae that illuminate the cave making it become a starry sky? Is there in man the need to find a link between the earth and the sky, between us and the upper part of us?
The title "Titiwai" is taken from the homonymous poem that closes the collection and that was inspired by the amazement in me aroused by the sight (not direct but photographic) of an extraordinary natural phenomenon. Mother Nature sculpts, paints, plays and writes; in one word, it creates and makes art ever since. The cover image is meant to be an opening, an invitation - even before reading - to find in these natural masterpieces man's longing to establish a fruitful and generating correspondence, precisely, with himself as a part , also, of a masterpiece, of a work constantly in progress that we can rediscover in every moment and in every place.
Franco Campegiani, a well-known poet, literary critic and internationally renowned art, in the afterword referring to these Titiwai creatures "... incandescent larvae projecting star-like gleams in the Waitomo caves" indicates in their way of being, able to give back a luminous vision of a dark place, a metaphor of how equilibrium resides precisely in the harmony of opposites. These are his words: "Titiwai .... a wonderful metaphor of these balances, of this specular mystery, of this duality. It is the meeting of Heaven with the Earth, the embrace of the Father with the Mother, the harmony between the Yn and the Yang. The Earth is nothing but an inverted sky, if we can find it sunk in its cavities. "These last words of Franco Campegiani are poetic and intense and contain a profound truth about the meaning of existence: in the balance we rediscover the beauty of life and the sense of belonging to this Earth. What then to tell me about it?
Thank you for mentioning my friend and postfitter, Franco Campegiani; not only mentioned but caught in the core of his thought (which is also mine: Franco knows well that, despite our differences, our weltanshauung has an identical matrix). The harmony of opposites is universal law, and it is a principle, a non-coercive but respectful rule of a balance of which we are a part; willy-nilly we must take note of it and - allow it - without wasting time; time (in natural terms) is about to expire. The encounter between the Earth and Heaven is the encounter with ourselves, and it can happen when and where we want: looking up or down: "The Earth is nothing but an overturned sky, if we can find it sunk in its cavities. "(From the afterword).
Nature is also here as a protagonist as in all your collections of poems. Between this book and the previous "Verticality" where one speaks of ascent upwards and descent towards oneself, there is a link, or rather a parallelism. Are we dealing with two ways of seeing the relationship between man and nature and the reflection on the need of man to rediscover this authentic link with his Mother Earth?
Not just a link and a parallelism but a continuation. "Verticality" is an invitation to go up, "Titiwai" to go down (if we want to say so) but - and this is the most important thing - always in a perpendicular sense, never in plan. We have too much horizontality: it has leveled us, reduced us to a road mat like a road roller; we are a shapeless and undifferentiated mass that adapts itself now to everything, to every wickedness, to every immorality. By answering, then, I say: yes, absolutely, it is the relationship between man and nature that I want to privilege; if you do not start from here - authentically, however, and not to make a trend - you will never get rid of the tear that threatens to make us lose our own identity.
Often the appearance deceives as it is in the cover image because it is never thought that simple larvae can illuminate so much a dark environment. Looking beyond appearance and not dwelling on the superficial is an invitation that man can appreciate others too? Furthermore, this reconsidering the others and therefore the Mother Earth that gives life, can become for man the occasion to reconsider himself in his essence, putting aside the unbridled need to have and gain power to appear the strongest?
I partly answered the previous question when I talked about loss of identity. This your further study, however, gives me the opportunity to dwell on the cover image: larvae (often "rejects" by man, as I write in the text of the eponymous poem) have metaphorically different polisenses: from the faculty of illuminating the darkness to that of resizing and scaling. I am convinced that there is a path: the one that leads to humility (as a recognition of our limitations and not submission) which alone can free us from the presumptuous and overwhelming presumption of a supposedly insubstantial superiority.
What is the lyric where, more and more in a softer tone, underlines the indifference of man towards Nature? And what another one in which the cry of sorrow of Mother Nature reveals even more?
I am oriented, no doubt, on "Anatroccoli" (included in the second part: "Pan Flȗte") as regards the first question and on "When the gates are more volatile" (in the first section: "The day of the wood") relatively to the cry of pain of Mother Earth.
Refer to the Earthly Paradise referring to the fruit, the apple and to Adam and Eve. The Earthly Paradise you speak of is what man could get back if he only found himself in the enthusiasm of living, returning to wonder and wonder at small things, because in simplicity there is wealth. What can you tell me about it?
I confirm and reiterate that simplicity, the simplicity of small things (even daily) can open the door of amazement. On the other hand - let us ask ourselves - what does the child (and who more than he is a poet) do? He marvels at everything around him, looks with wide eyes, and learns without knowing he is learning. The adult, with a disenchanted look, on the contrary, believes he is learning, but in reality he is forgetting, disapproving, being crushed by conformity.
St. Francis spoke of simplicity and love for creation between nature and animals. As the "Canticle of the Creatures", which is a hymn of love for nature in thanksgiving to the Lord, has strengthened you, since its first reading, the beauty of an authentic relationship with the sounds, the colors, the scents of nature and of creation?
The "Canticle of the Creatures" is the first true poetry of our literature (although not everyone agrees to consider it as such). Francis has lived in my land the last years of his life and some sources trace the composition or, at least, the first draft of the hymn to the period in which he stayed at what is now the Sanctuary of the Forest. I can assure you that every time I get on that little hill (which hosts it and which is no more than five minutes away from where I live) I distinctly feel the strong spiritual appeal of those simple and profound words.
In the nature in small sparks one can read the presence of God. Do you agree?
I can only agree: these gleams (titiwai) what else are they if not sparks of divine light, tiny lit lanterns to make people understand and open their eyes? "God is there" is sometimes read on road signs; I believe that it is not necessary to write it: it is written everywhere in creation.
Starting from the origins and the authenticity of oneself, can we find the essence of existence and that harmony that is difficult to breathe in this daily life too projected towards hedonism and power?
What we live is a society devoted to appearing and having, and therefore decidedly outward. Now - I ask myself - how can one think of finding the foundation, the substance of things and of oneself, contenting oneself with focusing only on their extrinsic aspect? With this, I do not want to assert that reality does not count but that is worth more than that when it acts as a mirror to look inside. It is like the one that, from the porthole of an airplane, observes the wonders of breathtaking views and does not realize that it is flying.
SILVANA LAZZARINO