A journey into altruism, solidarity, imagination, digging into one’s soul to restore serenity and joy to the victims of pain, suffering and daily anguish.
Concentrated travellers, the students of the first classes (sections A and H) of the “Rosa-Gianturco” Human Sciences High School of Potenza, who wanted to “Tell… to tell about themselves”, a Civic Education learning unit, and who took a note second place in the national competition “Raccontami 2024” of the Modena Small and Medium Publishing Festival, for the “Unpublished books” section, with the volume “Fantastica…ndo”, a collection of fantastic prose, verses and Haiku in English, published by Hermaion.
Professor Caterina Cavallo explains:
“’Fantastic…ndo’ is the product of fantastic writing seminars, meetings with narrators and noisemakers, experts in mimicry and proxemics, laboratory activities on communication, including advertising, having as its ultimate goal the construction of a reading group, through which the authors have built narrative bridges of friendship and relationships with the fragile realities of the territory: Family homes, RSAs, reception communities.
It is no coincidence that the pages also contain the QR code for listening to the texts, with a view to inclusive solidarity.
The proceeds – largely guaranteed by the School itself – will serve to support these same realities”.
The work is divided into two parts: Narrative and Poetry.
Two parts not disconnected from each other, but united by youthful creativity on highly topical issues, such as those of less fortunate people need helpwho live with evils, with worries, with constant worries and anxieties.
A single thread unites stories and verses coming from the sensitivity of young high school students, with a truly unique ability to arouse emotions.
In the stories and verses there is a profound humanity towards one’s fellow men, not as a duty but as a joy produced by the transport towards those who live in family homes and centers for the elderly, suffering people who cry out for help and above all sharing.
For this reason, the students’ works involved everyone in an upward momentum, with the tools of imagination fueled by the great values of human solidarity.
They are the voice of young souls that calls a silent multitude to distraction and escape from the suffering of everyday life, who have been able to pave the way for a people tormented by war to well-being and progress.
It is written in the Preface
“The publication collects talking stories, whose voice is given by the authorsstudents themselves, who are called to export their fantastic realities and emotions out of the book and share them with othersdonating a little of your time, to contribute to the well-being of those who need to be taken by the hand and led, on the wings of imagination, to imagine other, strange and wonderful realities, capable of distracting from the momentary condition of suffering, pain or sense of abandonment, thus promoting emotional and psychological well-being”.
Wonder is, however, the central theme of the section of the book dedicated to Poetry; wonder understood as “a tool through which man can carry out the most varied actions, with the aim of demonstrating love for creation, for others, for the small things and objects that populate everyday life”.
The young authors knew how to dig deep within themselves, tilling a fertile ground of emotions that they shared with readers, kidnapping them and projecting them into a common universe of impressions and emotions that were not predictable, not common, not distant from the genuineness and simplicity of their passions.
What emerged was a choral tale of spontaneous and original feelings, capable of overwhelming each of us in good ways.
Professor Cavallo points out:
“The work expresses, according to very specific compositional strategies, the most hidden world of the young writers, who did not hesitate to express fears and uncertainties through endings that were not always happy”.
All the work of the “Rosa-Gianturco” students was fueled by the ability of the teachers, assisted by the Lucanian writer Gianluca Caporasoto transfer in young authors the passion for writing, which resists unchanged to the unstoppable succession of changes of the time.
“Fantastica…ndo”, a reading of fantastic prose verses, was recently presented in Potenza at the headquarters of the BCC Basilicata, with interventions by:
- prof. Mario Lanzi, school director;
- Gianluca Caporaso, writer;
- teachers Caterina Cavallo and Piera Pistone,
- by the psychologist and psychotherapist Veronica Tancredi.
Readings by: Donato, Annalisa, Giada, Chiara, Aurora, Luciana, Giulia, Serena, Martina, Anna, Marica and Elena.
Here are the pictures.
