Menotti Lerro

Menotti Lerro

Menotti Lerro at the Giubbe Rosse's literary café, Florence 2011
Born February 22, 1980
Omignano, Salerno, Italy
Occupation Teacher, poet, novelist, short story writer
Education Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature (Erasmus project Oxford Brookes University); MA University of Reading; PhD Università degli Studi di Salerno; Visiting academic (Reading University, 2010-2011 / University of Warwick 2013-2014)
Period 2003 – present

In questa carta è scritta la mia vita,
un albero piegato alla sua ferita.
L’inchiostro rosso scorre sulla pelle,
i punti e le virgole son capelli e stelle:
occhi di mare lasciati sulle navi,
case distrutte, fradice travi.
Questa carta è nera come la tempesta,
villaggi distrutti dove non c’è festa.
Questa carta brucia come la ragione,
lampi nel cielo ne vedo un milione.
Questa carta è un cielo dove non c’è Dio,
questa carta è sola…
questa carta non vola…
questa carta… sono io.



Upon this paper my life is written,
a tree doubled over in pain.
The red ink flows over the skin,
full stops and commas are hair and stars:
eyes of sea left on ships,
destroyed houses, rusting girders.
This paper is as black as the storm,
destroyed villages where there is no fiesta.
This paper burns as reason does,
lightning in the sky flashes in its millions.
This paper is a sky where there is no God,
this paper is alone…
this paper does not fly…
this paper… it is I.

Quoted from: 'The Poetry of Menotti Lerro' (CSP, 2011),
Original text in: Profumi d'estate, Zona (2010)


Menotti Lerro (born February 22, 1980) is an Italian author. Writer of poetry, aphorisms, criticism, novels and short stories, Lerro has been the subject of a critical book by Andrew Mangham, from the University of Reading, entitled The Poetry of Menotti Lerro (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011),[1] (paperback edition, 2012).[2]

Life

Early life and education

Lerro was born in Omignano, Salerno, as first son of Pietro Lerro and Rosanna Pinto; he also has three sisters: Melinda, Romina and Lucrezia. The last is a popular writer, author of five novels with the publisher Bompiani and some with Mondadori. After getting a diploma in Vallo della Lucania (1999) Lerro gets his first scholarship and starts a course in foreign language at the University of Salerno and also begins to work for the periodical "il Salernitano". In 2003 Lerro lives and studies in Oxford for seven months and one year later he gets his degree with a final dissertation on the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Eugenio Montale, (tutor Professor Angelo Cardillo). In the same period he gets the official status of “Journalist Pubblicista” and starts to work for Mondadori, Italy’s main publishing house. In 2006 he gets a Scholarship from the University of Salerno to study abroad. In 2008 completes his Masters’ studies (degree in “The Body and Representation”[3] at the University of Reading, UK) and graduates with merit (tutor Professor Carolyn William Lyle). Begins a PhD programme at the University of Reading. Gets a grant to study for his PhD at the University of Salerno; leaves the University of Reading and completes his PhD in English and Spanish literature in Italy with very good results (Tutors Professors: Maria Teresa Chialant and Giuseppe Gentile).[4]

It is possible to get many information about Lerro's childhood through his autobiographical novel Augusto Orrel: Memories of Horror and Poetry (2007). In this text, the author describes young Orrel’s experiences of becoming a man. The latter (whose name is “Lerro” spelt backwards) is a character that the author admits to having based on himself.

"I used to repeat to myself: "If I get sick… not only will nobody be able to help me, but I won’t be able to remain close to my family and to give them a hand"

— Augusto Orrel[5]

In Augusto Orrel we find a modern manifestation of Goethe’s Werther: a melancholy and passionate young man whose sorrows are outlined in a language that is both striking and raw. Lerro describes how Augusto is forced to play the role of father to his own father due to the latter’s increasing level of psychological delusion. Unsurprisingly, the protagonist begins to feel an enormous and disproportionate amount of responsibility on his young shoulders. Indeed, the idea of a difficult and unconventional childhood is a force that drives much of Lerro’s poetry – especially those pieces featuring recollections of the father.[6]

Publications

Overview

Lerro has produced essays, poetry, fiction, autobiography, and drama. His first book of poetry, Ceppi Incerti, was published in 2003 for the literary Caffè Giubbe Rosse, when Lerro was still a student at the University of Salerno. In the journal Poesia Roberto Carifi says that Lerro "redeems in the brightness of his verses, of course flourished and characterized by shadows of solitude, the dramatic nature of events hanging over memory and time [...]. The book by Lerro is similar to the stumps evoked in the title, it is a patchwork of embers and ashes, of fires and glares that catch fire in the ‘dark house’ as the last meaning of life lights up itself in the certain and indelible truth of the pain." ["Riscatta nella luminosità dei suoi versi, certamente fioriti e percorsi da ombre di solitudine, la drammaticità di un'infanzia che incombe nella memoria e nel tempo [...]. Il libro di Lerro somiglia ai ceppi evocati nel titolo, è un mosaico di braci e di cenere, di fuochi e barbagli che si accendono nella "casa buia" come il senso ultimo della vita si illumina nella certa e incancellabile verità del dolore."][7] According to Andrew Mangham "One of Lerro’s main strengths, as a poet, is his dedication to the phenomenological nature of human existence. His is a poetry concerned with powerful imagery, the physicality and vulnerability of the body, the meaning of objects, the interpretation of memories, and the philosophical importance of identity."[8]

2005, 2006, 2007

Lerro’s next book was Passi di libertà silenziose (2005) in which he assembled all of his works from the period in which he was a student, including poems, short stories, two epistolary novels and around one hundred aphorisms. Lerro published in 2006 another collection of poems Senza Cielo. Lerro went on to create I Poeti Senza Cielo, a two-volume anthology edited in 2007. Lerro aimed to present a wide range of poets, some famous, some otherwise, having a relevant point in common: namely the feeling of being "without sky", without hope.

"My teenage years passed in this way, without sky, without any hope in the future"

— Augusto Orrel[5]

In that year Lerro published many books, among them his first work of aphorisms (Aforismi, 2007). This was followed up, in 2008, with a collection of around three hundred poems entitled Primavera (Spring).[9]

2008present

In 2008, Lerro's poetry was featured in the Mondadori collection Non Ancora Trentenni[10] (Not yet Thirty, a special edition concerning poets and writers who were born in the '80s). His new volume Profumi d'Estate (2010)[11] followed.

Guest speaking

Menotti Lerro giving a poetry reading at The University of Reading, UK, 2011
Menotti Lerro with Maurizio Cucchi at the House of Poetry in Milan

.

Menotti Lerro at the Turin International Book Fair
Menotti Lerro at the Consulate General of Romania in Milan in occasion of the World Poetry Day 2015

Poems as lyrics

In 2015 selected poems of Lerro become lyrical songs,[25] with the title of I Battiti della Notte. The first concert[26] is set in Poland.[27]

Menotti Lerro to Gdańsk with the poster of the concert I Battiti della Notte

.

Concerts:

Selected awards

Menotti Lerro and Alessandro Serpieri at the Caffè Giubbe Rosse in occasion of the launch of the book The poetry of Menotti Lerro

Selected creative work

Work by Menotti Lerro translated into other languages

Selected critical work

Selected criticism of Lerro


Menotti Lerro, Maria Rosaria La Marca and Alessandro Serpieri at the Caffè Giubbe Rosse in occasion of the launch of the book The poetry of Menotti Lerro

Critical Responses

Anthologies

Magazines

Newspapers

Interviews

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-poetry-of-menotti-lerro-18
  2. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poetry-Menotti-Lerro-Andrew-Mangham/dp/144384022X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405632111&sr=8-1&keywords=the+poetry+of+menotti+lerro
  3. http://www.reading.ac.uk/PG/subjects/pgsubID122.html
  4. Andrew Mangham, The poetry of Menotti Lerro (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012), p. 15
  5. 5.0 5.1 Qtd. In The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, 2011.
  6. Andrew Mangham, The poetry of Menotti Lerro (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012), p.2
  7. Poesia, Crocetti, Anno XVI Giugno 2003 N° 173
  8. A. Mangham, The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, Cit. p.1
  9. 9.0 9.1 "Primavera". Ilfiloonline.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  10. http://www.sbn.it/opacsbn/opaclib?db=solr_iccu&resultForward=opac/iccu/full.jsp&from=1&nentries=10&searchForm=opac/iccu/error.jsp&do_cmd=search_show_cmd&fname=none&item:1032:BID=IT%5CICCU%5CRMB%5C0703721
  11. 11.0 11.1 "PROFUMI D'ESTATE poesie di Menotti Lerro". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  12. "Rural Reads book club - University of Reading". Reading.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  13. "Feb 18, 2011 3:35pm". Facebook. 2011-02-18. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  14. http://www.criticaletteraria.org/2013/05/salto13-aforismi-e-poesie-al-salone-del.html
  15. http://www.lacasadellapoesia.com/ShowObj1.asp?ID=312
  16. http://milano.mae.ro/it/local-news/1520
  17. http://www.culturaromena.it/Home/tabid/36/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/932/Poesia-che-unisce-e-solleva.aspx
  18. http://www.rgnpress.ro/rgn_14/categorii/eveniment/16755-ziua-mondial-a-poeziei-srbtorit-la-milano-printr-un-dialog-italo-roman.html
  19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGkRfaiHB58
  20. http://www.sudsostenibile.it/it/notizie/cultura/premio-di-poesia-giuseppe-de-marco-tutto-pronto-allancel-keys
  21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAd-MT1ViI8
  22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVvxPgmOh7s
  23. http://www.subway-letteratura.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=18&limit=9&limitstart=9
  24. http://www.salernoletteratura.com/it/axPrograms.php?programDate=&editionId=1&period=3&lng=I
  25. http://arch.ug.edu.pl/pl/gutw/?id_kom=13374
  26. https://ssl.gdansk.pl/kultura?id=20044
  27. http://www.iicvarsavia.esteri.it/IIC_Varsavia/webform/SchedaEvento.aspx?id=911&citta=Varsavia
  28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py7r64maoT4
  29. "Premio "Renata Canepa"- Ecco i vincitori e finalisti". Ilgrappolo.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  30. "Premio letterario "Città di Leonforte" | Leonforte". Ennaweb.com. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  31. "Tre libri Manni al Premio Alfonso Gatto | :: Manni Editori ::". Mannieditori.it. 2009-05-20. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  32. "Sito Ufficiale del Comune di Romano di Lombardia". Comune.romano.bg.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  33. https://www.facebook.com/571793236193629/photos/a.963875866985362.1073741828.571793236193629/963875356985413/?type=1&theater
  34. http://www.unisa.it/news/index/idStructure/213/id/486
  35. "Fanno parte della collana edita dalle Giubbe Rosse". Giubberosse.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  36. http://www.guidaeditori.it/
  37. "Joker edizioni". Edizionijoker.com. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  38. "Il diario di Mary e altri racconti, di Menotti Lerro". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  39. "Gli occhi sul tempo | :: Manni Editori ::". Mannieditori.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  40. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane-collana-blu/i-dieci-comandamenti/
  41. "Il mio bambino - Menotti Lerro - Libro - Genesi Editrice - Le Scommesse". Genesi.org. 2003-06-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  42. "Nel nome del Padre - Menotti Lerro - Libro - Genesi Editrice - Poeti Senza Cielo". Genesi.org. 2003-06-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  43. http://www.zonacontemporanea.it/fugadaorrel.htm
  44. http://www.zonacontemporanea.it/gliannidicristo.htm
  45. http://www.zonacontemporanea.it/aforismiepensieri.htm
  46. http://www.zonacontemporanea.it/2084.htm
  47. http://www.zonacontemporanea.it/entropiadelcuore.htm
  48. "ZONAcontemporanea.it". ZONAcontemporanea.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  49. "Selected poems - Menotti Lerro - Libro - Genesi Editrice - Le Scommesse". Genesi.org. 2003-06-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  50. "ZONAcontemporanea.it". ZONAcontemporanea.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  51. http://www.genesi.org/scheda-libro/menotti-lerro/poeme-alese-9788874143764-124279.html
  52. "L'Io Lirico Nella Poesia Contemporanea, Di Menotti Lerro". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  53. "La tela del poeta - Menotti Lerro - Libro - Genesi Editrice - Letteratura & Civiltà". Genesi.org. 2003-06-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  54. "Anne Whitehead, Memory, Routledge, New York 209, 173 pp." (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  55. "Carocci editore - Raccontarsi in versi". Carocci.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  56. "IL PENDOLO ROTTO, romanzo di Thomas Lehn". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-03-11.
  57. http://www.csus.edu/faculty/c/carleb/Creative-Works-docs-images/Testo59.pdf
  58. 58.0 58.1 "Annali Storici di Principato Citra - IX, 1, 2011, pp. 5-27" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  59. "Gli occhi sul tempo | :: Manni Editori ::". Mannieditori.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  60. "Genesi Editrice Vendita libri online". Genesi.org. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  61. "Profumi D'estate - poesie" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  62. "Il Diario Di Mary - e altri racconti" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  63. http://www.mannieditori.it/rassegna/rescigno-lerro-gli-occhi-sul-tempo-3
  64. http://www.mannieditori.it/rassegna/rescigno-lerro-gli-occhi-sul-tempo-4
  65. http://www.poiein.it/autori/2006/2006_06/02_Menotti.htm
  66. http://www.mannieditori.it/rassegna/rescigno-lerro-gli-occhi-sul-tempo-2
  67. http://www.mannieditori.it/rassegna/rescigno-lerro-gli-occhi-sul-tempo-0
  68. 68.0 68.1 68.2 68.3 68.4 68.5 68.6 68.7 68.8 Andrew Mangham, The Poetry of Menotti Lerro (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).
  69. http://www.editricezona.it/gliocchisullacritica.htm
  70. Pubblicato da L'Arca Felice. "farapoesia". Farapoesia.blogspot.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  71. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane/2010-il-segreto-delle-fragole/
  72. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane/2011-il-segreto-delle-fragole/
  73. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane-collana-blu-aretusa/il-corpo-segreto-corpo-ed-eros-nella-poesia-maschile/
  74. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane-collana-rossa/rosso-tra-erotismo-e-santita/
  75. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane-collana-blu-aretusa/taggo-e-ritraggo/
  76. "DOLCE NATURA ALMENO TU NON MENTI, antologia poetica a cura di Michele Delpiano". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  77. "DOLCE NATURA ALMENO TU NON MENTI, antologia poetica a cura di Michele Delpiano". Editricezona.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  78. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane-collana-blu/arbor-poetica-poesie-su-immagini-di-stefano-de-francisci/
  79. http://www.lietocolle.com/shop/collane/lustione-nella-poesia/
  80. http://www.genesi.org/news-note-ai-libri-di-menotti-lerro-nota-di-roberto-carifi-360.html
  81. "Vernice abbonamento a tre numeri - - Libro - Genesi Editrice - Vernice". Genesi.org. 2003-06-30. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  82. "È assai arduo l’uso della rima". Lastampa.It. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  83. "La Mosca 24- recensioni pubblicate". Lavitafelice.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  84. "Italinemo - Riviste di italianistica nel mondo". Italinemo.it. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  85. https://www.facebook.com/ThePoetryOfMenottiLerro/photos/a.179319122128021.43781.155963964463537/810103152382945/?type=1&theater
  86. https://www.facebook.com/464243336993256/photos/a.664831443601110.1073741828.464243336993256/664831366934451/?type=1&theater
  87. https://logopea.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/la-permanenza-e-la-perdita/
  88. https://www.facebook.com/266332020126206/photos/a.482880318471374.1073741825.266332020126206/770837196342350/?type=1&theater
  89. http://www.aphorism.it/menotti_lerro/libri/2084_il_potere_dellimmortalita_nelle_citta_del_d/
  90. http://www.literary.it/dati/literary/mandrino/senza_cielo.html
  91. http://www.carocci.it//files/recensioni/avvenire01.12.12.pdf
  92. "Cover Photos". Facebook. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  93. http://www.carocci.it//files/recensioni/pulp06.2013.pdf
  94. http://www.genesi.org/news-note-ai-libri-di-menotti-lerro-commento-di-maria-rita-parsi-362.html
  95. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Menotti-Lerro/194495717279334?ref=hl
  96. "I narratori della post-realta" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  97. http://www.fantascienza.com/magazine/notizie/19567/2084-il-potere-dell-immortalita-nelle-citta/
  98. http://www.sudsostenibile.it/it/notizie/cultura/menotti-lerro-a-danzica-poesie-musicate-da-tomasz-krezymon-per-paulina-martini
  99. http://lucaniart.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/spunti-diversi-con-menotti-lerro/
  100. https://it-it.facebook.com/ThePoetryOfMenottiLerro/photos/a.179319122128021.43781.155963964463537/659115320815063/?type=1&theater

External links