PIERCING THE PAGE. SELECTED POEMS 1958-1989

Antonio Porta represents one of the highest and most intense poetic achievements of postwar Italy. Porta conceived poetry as an open and endless project, a work in progress in which the exploration of language and the inquisitive gaze on the world always coincide. The result is a verbal tension and a cognitive restlessness that are indeed rare and unique. Porta’s poetry on the one hand faces the distressing and dehumanized manifestations of existence and, on the other, in its later stages, it generates liberating messages of hope and regeneration.

On the occasion of the publication of Antonio Porta, Piercing the Page. Selected Poems
1958-1989 (Los Angeles: Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2012), the book's editor, Gian
Maria Annovi (University of Denver), will discuss Porta’s work in conversation with Paolo Valesio (Columbia University).

Book Presentation, discussion and poetry reading (in Italian and English)