Australian Poetry and Identity

Collection of Students’ Poems April-May 2020

Gloria Petyarre Bush Medicine Leaf

UntitledPeroni N. April 2020

From time to time, I can’t help but thinkOf lost summers in Follonica. Of weeks of sunshine.Of dinners by the beach. A pizza to eat and a coke to drink.

Or, perhaps, even a dishful of pasta with a glass of red wine.Eyes as lost as Ulysses in my Mediterranean’s blue waves,And behind me, those radiant Tuscany hills of mine.

UntitledGuarducci I. April 2020

I wish I was wandering through magical streets,surrounded by yellow hills and brown mountains,the Mediterranean sea touching my bones.At night I dream of Michelangelo and Dante,I contemplate myself in a Renaissance painting,hoping to never awakening.

I would never be like those people,full of energy and style,whose life is warmer than the sun.I would never know the sound of their voices,The taste of their food and the direction of their gestures.I am just lost and forgotten.

GoneMarchiani D. April 2020

Where are now goneThose kisses on my cheeksThose walks through soft hills, The cypresses, Gone, as that hot summer breezeNear the Tyrrenian Sea.

Lost, as that warmthOf a mama cooked meal, On SundayNow gone and far away, What a day, when theyTook all of this from me.

UntitledLefons M. April 2020

A spider bit me and I can’t stop myselfI feel like dancing and moving in hysterical jumpsI feel the ground with my bare feet. It hurtsI look down from the cliff to see the waves crushing on the rocksI wish I was more like themSteady, solid, unshakableInstead I am one with the windLost, volatile, unstableI could crush at any secondIf only I knew how to stop If only I knew who I was

Remember Amoruso Y. April 2020

Remember a time, when we were able to singTo the wind the love for our Land.Remember a time, when we were able to speak

The language of our ancestors.Remember a time, when we were able to seeThe magnificence of The Eternal City.

But now, we can only remember our past freedomBecause we are not allowed anymore.

UntitledCiardi R. April 2020

Like a bird out of its nest, I was scared and unprepared for what was next.

My small dimension was soon replacedBy something new I had to embrace.

You are proud of your alleged superiority,But remember that you have lost your dignity.

UntitledGuedes L. April 2020

No pigment, no memory appears on stone,a lost path whose origin is no longer known.

AshesGaeta G. April 2020

Little white butterfly that flewFreely and undisturbedAmong the fields of olive treesAnd vineyardsThey broke your wings.Little bee from whose wildflower honeyYou taste a nectar and live a dreamThey trapped you.

Like a sunset over the seaLike the last note of The Four SeasonsLike the tip of an ice-cream coneLike the second tercet of a sonnet by PetrarchNothing lasts forever.But one thing remains, Memory.

The stolen soulGlegola A. April 2020

Life is already disappearing, slowly escapingand my heart is broken.It is so empty ...It is so quiet ...Helplessness.Silence.Grief.

UntitledDinolfo F. May 2020

Chains and a leaden sky. Where is the light of the sun? Knees on the ground, no more horizon from the shore where I used to be

Isolation Glegola A. April 2020

I am here...And you are there ...I can't see you ...I can't touch you ...I can't tell you how much I love you.Everything is gray ......empty.Because I am here.I am not happy anymore ...Because I am here.

Happiness?Yes… but what does that mean?Mum, dad… are you there?

UntitledGuasti D. April 2020

Oh my wonderful land, once full of its mysteries, beauties, History, cities and art, what has occurred to you? Your hills, your mountains, rivers, and your seaSeem to be suffering, the fiery sun shining over you seem to give to your animals, plants and flowers a grey and unsafe lifeblood. Why?

As well as humans, lacking their primordial passions, romanticism, And freedom of expressing emotions and ideas Seem to be part of a fight in which they are against each other,While in the past they were all brothers. Yes my poor land, they accepted the subjection of their deepest, most genuine essence. Why?

A Lost HeartGuida A. May 2020

Lost was the warmth, Cold bodies hold this nostalgic mind,An empty heart has remained, asThe eye no longer reaches the sea.

LivornoMenzano R. May 2020

Red city,free of any ghettos,it raised me as one of thosecitizens of the world.A bunch of thingsall sown togethermakes me the manI so proudly am.

Pack my bags and leavethis city built around a port,crossroads of different cultures,will remain forever in my heart.

IslandCossu A. May 2020

Mighty is the wave but cannot wash awaythe blood that soils the rocky, lonely shoreOn which the sea now shatters with a roar Dissolving its great force in senseless foam.

The ancient chants still echo through the hills,But not a soul remains to lend its ear.Maybe just that one man, who stands aloneWithin his windswept shack among the bushes.

He hears the boars’ and foxes’ deathly cries,Mistakes them for his mother’s lullabies.

THE LOSS OF IDENTITYLambiase S. April 2020

The loss of identity is like lose yourself. Suppose identity A, B, C

Identity A Identity B Identity C

An identity A will never be equal to an identity B, which in turn will never be equal to identity C, and so on

Without identity people no longer know who they are. Without identity, there is nothing. People are nothing.

Identity A (1) Identity A (2)

≠

If the Identity A is not equal to Identity A, thus identity A doesn’t exist.

As Pirandello said regarding the loss of identity, each individual is “One, No One and One Hundred Thousand” so, basically, any person.

FlorenceTerzani M. C. April 2020

Like a lily torn from its meadowTrying to keep its head up in the shadowNo more sun to let it grow, to keep it warm Its dry roots are trying to cling to the ground during a storm

But the wind is too strong And the way home too long Its roots let go the ground and fall apart But Giotto’s rhythm still marks the beat of its heart.

NatureTerzani M.C. May 2020

Small and fragile we face the horizonat the mercy of the most powerful forcethat sweeps away all our certainties.

An ocean of thoughtslost in the vastness of the mist,

everything seems to be

meaningless

The Monk by the Sea, Caspar David Friedrich, 1808-1810, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

UntitledLambiase S. May 2020

“Love is not just passion and tenderness, love is harmony, when after a few moments the alchemy between two people start”