Catania – With his “poetic return”, after the presentation last year of the first collection of poems “Voglia di ci”, published by Il Convivio, Vincenzo Caruso, hematologist but poet at heart, offers readers his new publication , with the same publisher: “Poetry, for a handshake”.
Inserted as part of the initiative of the Municipality of Catania “May of books”, by the Center for books and reading “If you read ti lib(e)ri”, the presentation of the anthology took place on Wednesday 8 May 2024, in the prestigious venue of the Benedictine Monastery, small refectory of the Riunite Libraries” Civica and A. Ursino Recupero” with interventions by Milly Bracciante, writer, literary critic and Stefano Valentini, poet and director of “La Nuova Tribuna Letteraria” Padua; musical interludes by Giulia Longo on the flute; readings of Lina Giuffrida actress.
The numerous participants at the event were received with the elegant grace and exquisiteness that distinguish it by the director of the Library, Dr. Rita Carbonaro who attended together with Dr. Carmela Costa who, representing the institutions of the Municipality of Catania, gave to those present a welcome greeting.
The actress Lina Giuffrida hosted the event, interspersed with the reading of some lyrics.
In her speech, Prof. Milly Bracciante underlined how the poetry of Vincenzo Caruso, which detaches itself from nineteenth-century legacies, does not refer to twentieth-century currents and mannerisms, but rather ventures into the side of “narrative poetry” which sets itself the task of telling, starting from conviction, moreover truthful, so “just looking makes no sense, you have to know how to see to know and argue”. Considered an anti-rhetorical, anti-lyrical poet, devoid of the use of metaphors, complex constructs, poetic figures, Vincenzo Caruso represents a “new voice” who prefers narrative intercalation and the use of the incidental as a moment of interior reflection that serves to to let others know simply with the humility of a free verse what he himself has managed to know by observing in its essentiality the reality of everyday life with a new eye always and in any case turned towards the positive. This is a path that introduces the distracted gaze of the earthly city into the other dimension of the celestial city where the values of the spirit count, where morality is an essential measure of life and empathy is also self-giving understood as a testimony of brotherhood, of communion, of free sharing, where the rejection of what is different is a scandal for humanity as Pope Francis has repeatedly recalled. A poetry that does not forget the breath of beauty of nature and enhances its values also through photographic shots to immortalize them, a poetry that by giving voice to things with their language results in a bond of human and cosmic charity as with a handshake .
Speaking via streaming, Stefano Valentini then carried out a critical overview of many of the published poems, highlighting an expressive urgency that had never manifested itself for many years but was certainly cultivated internally, then focusing on the details that from time to time characterize their value and give strength to the Author’s thought aimed at highlighting the positive of reality and life as a result of the principles of Beauty and Truth which distinguish the Christian vision of life secularly and simply lived in Good, in enjoyment and joy, precisely, to “be there”. Where poetry for Vincenzo Caruso can only be sharing, participation, presence, community, and the word is strength, blessing, crossword, the poet seeks it and is sought by it in a loving dimension capable of arousing emotions. And emotions, finally, aroused harmonious interlude pieces, happily performed by Giulia Longo’s transverse flute.
