Painterly Poetry and Dog(gerel)

The second visit to the Bronzino exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi was as delightful as the first. It was a chance to examine closer many of the paintings and related works and to read, more extensively, the fine explanations (in Italian and English) that put the works in context. An added feature was the burlesque verses in the style of Bronzino, again in both Italian and English. As a member of the Academia the painter was expected to excel in more than one of the arts. He was a writer of poetry - serious, burlesque, doggerel and limerick poetry all of which circulated among his friends and some of which was published. The exhibition included a display of his literary works including this page, at the right, from a book of his burlesque poems.

In the spirit of this really remarkable exhibition curators Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali - to whom be all honour and glory! - have included burlesque verses for many of the works created by Italian writer-poet-actor Roberto Piumini who is known for his modern takes on mythological subjects. They then were used as inspiration by Konrad Eisenbichler, a well-known teacher of Renaissance studies at the University of Toronto, to write English poems in the same spirit.

Here is the first of a selection I'll post over the next few days gleaned from their book that accompanies the exhibition: Cerchi nei QUADRI/Hide AND Seek* along with the picture the verses accompany. (Remember a left click will enlarge both Bartolomeo and his pup!)

Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciaticchi
(1541-5) oil on canvas
Galleria degli Uffizi

Bartolomeo, d'acccordo, tu leggevi
tranquillament quel tu libricino
pieno di cose sagge, e riflettevi
nel bel silenso del tu balconino.

Lui ha abbaiato, sì, ma solamente
perché voleva un po' farsi notare,
perché, lo sai, è fedele e intelligente,
ma ha voglia di muoversi, di andare ...

Tu invece l'hai sgridato, e lui è fuggito,
e adesso è lì, stordito di dolore,
tristissimo, nascosto, impaurito ...
Su, dagli una carezza, buon signore!

Detail of sorrowful pup!

Bartolemo, I know you were
Constantly reading a small tome
(A learned text, if I don't err)
On your fine balcony at home,

When all at once he barked because
He wished to tell you he was there
And that, perhaps, his restless paws
needed to move and go somewhere.

You scowled at him and told him: "Hush!"
So now he sits, forlorn and sad,
With ears down low, his face a blush.
Give him a pat and make him glad!

* Cherci nei Quadri/Hide and Seek

Roberto Piumini - Konrad Eisenbichler

2010 Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze

2010 Alias, Firenze

It may be purchased through their on-line store.

15 gennaio - San Macario il Vecchio

"Quote... Unquote"

I was chatting with my friend Yannis from Athens earlier this week and the subject got around to poetry. He asked if I was familiar with the poetry of C. P. Cavafy. I had to admit complete ignorance, so in a vain effort to educate me he sent links to a few of Cavafy's poems on a website devoted to the great Hellenic poet.

I was immediately captivated by the first poem he sent: Ithaka - Cavafy's thoughts on our life journey as filtered through the travels of Odysseus to his homeland.

Many of his poems are homo-erotic in nature and must have scandalized the society of his time. Gray, is an evocation of long-ago love recalled.

While looking at a half-gray opal
I remembered two lovely gray eyes—
it must be twenty years ago I saw them...

........................................

We were lovers for a month.
Then he went away to work, I think in Smyrna,
and we never met again.

Those gray eyes will have lost their beauty—if he’s still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.

Memory, keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever of that love you can bring back,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.

C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems.
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.
Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition.
Princeton University Press, 1992

I found myself remembering for a few moments a pair of eyes from my past. Thank you Yannis.

26 giugno - San Virgilio

The Poetry of War

On my way home on the bus last night I came across these two stanza’s from Where Are the War Poets? quoted in Ronald Eyre’s National Service.

Where are the War Poets?
They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.

It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.

Cecil Day-Lewis- Where are the War Poets? - 1943

As the body of Trooper Darryl Caswell, the latest fatality from the Canadian Forces mission in Afghanistan, was being laid to rest news came of three more deaths. Though the numbers on the Canadian casualty list is insignificant compared to Afghani or American deaths it is disproportionate to the number of combatants taking part in what was sold to the Canadian Public as a Peace Mission.

The purpose of the mission has changed in the past two years but despite the hollow rhetoric calling for the support of our troops, Canada’s New Government is still sending soldiers out badly equipped and in unprotected vehicles. According to old Snake Eyes because I don’t support our involvement in Afghanistan I don’t support our forces; seems to me that his Government’s support should go beyond speeches and sound bytes.