The idea of exploring the dynamics that have led poetry to take on its current forms – in terms of language and musicality – stems from a comparison between the poetry of the past, which remains strongly tied to defined metrical and rhetorical structures, and contemporary poetry, which is increasingly inclined towards free forms and a gradual blending with prose. From this comparison emerges the need – now that fixed forms have fallen by the wayside and a shift towards an increasingly prosaic language has been observed – to identify a distinctive feature that still allows us to recognise the specificity of poetic discourse. I have identified this trait in ‘musicality’: a quality which, as described in the text, should emerge immediately on a sensory level, through rhythm, sound and the arrangement of words, without requiring an almost physiological immersion in the poet’s sensibility or excessive interpretative mediation. From this perspective, musicality is not merely an aesthetic element, but a structuring principle of the poetic text itself.
I therefore also focused on the need for a more accessible and less self-referential language, so that poetry—a genre historically little read and sometimes perceived as distant—might regain a broader communicative dimension and re-establish a more direct relationship with the contemporary reader.
The views set out in this essay are, of course, personal, stemming from my own understanding of poetry and my experience as a reader, and make no claim to be definitive; rather, they are intended to offer food for thought within the debate on the role and forms of poetry today.