Human, Too Human
Milo De Angelis’ latest book of poetry: hermetic, epigrammatic,
recreating the emotions of classic lyric poetry
Paolo Verri
Potrait photo of Milo De Angelis
It is easier to construct a past from a love than from a recent death.
From a death that has just occurred or is about to occur, one finds meaning not so much in the detachment, the difference, the distance, but rather in the precision of resemblance in the absence of every division. Paradoxically, death constitutes a bridge between bodies, trying to postpone it in time, one looks for the hand of the man or woman who is about to die, tries to set it apart from the relationship that one has with that person; it is done inasmuch as we are human. Does the disgrace lie in that fact that all this can occur or in that we can describe it, write it and publish it? If you happen to be in a city in central Italy and Milo De Angelis’ latest book of poetry falls into your hands, how can you help yourself from buying it? De Angelis is the latest poet of an all-Italian poetic tradition. At times more hermetic and closer to Montale, at others more epigrammatic and resembling Vittorio Sereni, this like Fear of Goodbye, which recreates in a book the emotions of the great classic lyric poetry. It is like reading Catullus. Especially now, in the age of communication, you get the feeling from De Angelis of once again being able to trust yourself. He does not write to invent a story of pain. Instead, he is aware that he cannot not say it, cannot not put the experience that he has lived into words. The pages read like a small novel in verse (actually, here and there the Bertolucci of The Bedroom emerges), inspired by the first encounter with his love to be, in a morning of childhood. The woman has a limber body, maybe she’s an athlete, a gymnast who crosses diagonally over sublime soft carpets, judged by unmoved judges. Now the judgment, the decision of her existence is given by doctors in pale gowns. We are in an Italian city, Milan, but it could be Detroit or Stockholm. The light that intoxicates the poetry is that of a very clear morning in which every body appears as if by surprise. On the other hand, De Angelis uses a language of miraculous simplicity.
The repetitions recall those of the rosary. Reciting a rosary helps to cleanse the mind. The litany brings you closer to the divine, like the Om of Buddhist monks. The world of the person who has just passed away runs by you. So close you can still touch her, but her hand, different from your own, does not respond. “In the insurmountable minute all / the gardens of our lives return”. In so much that it carries you backwards in time, and space no longer exists, only the dimension of the memory exists, a horizontal dimension. “Along a Roserio street/ and shadows, I walk, I stay beside / you, your sandals / how the asphalt burned, the asphalt / of every summer, the asphalt / that penetrates the heart until it appears / the wound, until the view / is silent like its conclusion”. The space-time relationship creates dialogue, hope, alternatives. “You ask only to be spared”. Humanity, humility, transcendence brought about by the absolute awareness of being finished. Fifty-seven poems to read and reread. To be human, too human, impotent if one does not become progeny.
