Daniele Mencarelli’s Apulian book tour starts from Foggia and will be at the Civica Pinacoteca ‘Il 9Cento’ on Monday 13 May at 6pm to talk about his latest collection entitled ‘Of lovers, not of heroes’ (Mondadori, 2024). The appointment, included as an off event of ‘Fuori i Poeti’, the review of the ‘la Magna Capitana’ library of Foggia and the Ubik bookshop, is part of the activities of the Foggia Book Presidium ‘RivoltaPagina’, created on the initiative of the Library.
‘Of lovers, not heroes’. Two complementary poems, the first entitled ‘Love Story’ is dedicated to the sentimental story that unfolds between 1992 and 2023 between two very young people. “[Una] story in verse, simple, adolescent, staged to tell the story of love in its excess”. Published in the yellow series of ‘Pordenonelegge’ in 2015, the poem is here rewritten and transformed, especially in the ending. “Through Anna, Gabriele discovers love, therefore the feeling of gratitude and at the same time rebellion against human nature, at its mortal limit”, writes the poet in the final note. The other poem, entitled ‘Lux Hotel’, with a play of metaphors highlights the theme of negative heroism in its warlike connotation, trying to unmask and ridicule it. “The wonderfully utopian hope – Mencarelli always writes in the note – is that we will arrive at a world where what is celebrated is the heroism of forgiveness, of compassion, of the courage that helps”.
