And 'died yesterday in Milan the poet Alda Merini. She was 78. The protagonist of the Italian cultural scene, and considered the greatest living Italian poet, was admitted to hospital in St. Paul (the funeral home will be staged at the Palazzo Marino) from ten days to a bone tumor. He lived in poverty - by choice - so much so that daily meals were brought in by the municipal social services. He sang and lived the excluded mental illness. The funeral will be held Wednesday, November 4 at the Duomo in Milan: a state funeral, Mayor Letizia Moratti announced after the green light by the Council of Ministers.
In recent years her face had also become popular to television audiences. His frequent appearances, with that voice hoarse from the smoke, with words and deep thoughts and all understandable. Thanks to her, many had moved closer to poetry. The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, said he was deeply saddened by his death: "It is less clear, and an inspired poetic voice."
Born into a wealthy family who rarely (his father was employed in an insurance company, mother housewife) the Merini just fifteen began with the collection The presence of Orpheus Schwarz edited by the publisher. And as already attracted the attention of critics, the young Alda was having difficulty in the world of "normal" school. It was rejected when he tried to enter the junior high school. They said that was not enough evidence in the Italian language. From that moment his life was always on the border between the recognition of his exceptional ability and poetic difficulties due to mental illness, which in 1947 took her to the hospital for a month, the clinic Villa Turro, Milan. She herself has always spoken and written defining his mental suffering as "shadows of the mind." With which, over time, has learned to live with. In some ways, the pain helped her to dig deep into the human soul.
So he said to Anthony Alda Merini Gnoli the output from the disease, in an interview with the Republic.
"For me, healing is a way to get rid of the past. Everything happened quickly. The last time I went to the Institute that I was treating me for depression thing happened that I had never tried. One morning I woke up and I said what am I doing here? So it's really my life started again. I started writing and I even found the success that I never thought of getting. " On successful Alda laughs hoarsely and slow and then adds: "Success is like the water of Lourdes, a miracle. The people applaud, sing hymns and wonder: but what have I done to deserve this? I think the crowd, even a small one, who loves you helps you to live. After all, a poet also has something histrionic and neutral. For this the asylum was for me the great poem of love and death. But even today this place is distant. I sometimes see him again in a dream. I dream a lot. And among the dreams I used one: I am in a closed place, and me trying to get out the keys. Maybe they are mentally still in that place that killed me and I was reborn. I feel like a woman who still wants to. Today for example I would like someone I went to buy cigarettes. I never stopped smoking, or hope. "
Since the early years of his poetic work, he met and attended masters like Quasimodo, Montale and Manganelli that supported and promoted the publication of his works. After The presence of Orpheus (and some individual poems published in various anthologies), leaving Roman Marriage and Fear of God Merini, in the meantime had married Hector Carniti (1953) and had his first daughter Emanuela. At the child's pediatrician had dedicated the collection, you are Peter (1961).
Here begins another difficult period studded dolorisissimi shelters and return home more difficult but also cheered by the birth of three children. With a long period to "Paolo Pini". From 1972 to 1979 the situation gradually improves and the poet returned to writing. And, with great courage, in poetry and prose recounts his experience ("The Holy Land").
Widowed in 1981, be married with the poet Michele Pierri (1983) and with him will live in Taranto and still meet the ghosts of his mind. In 1986 he returned to Milan where he has always lived up to his death. And this is the last twenty years most of his best known works: "The easy life", "The Happy Life", "The other truth. Diary of a different "," "the words of Alda Merini", "Mad, mad, mad love for you", "In the circle of thought", "The reins of gold" and many others. Including "Superb is the Night" an attempt to fix Einaudi poems written between 1996 and 1999.
On its website, next to the picture with her hair disheveled, his eyes deep and the inevitable cigarette in hand, three verses: "(I'm a little angry bee.) I like to change color. I like change of measure ".
The Franciscan friars of Assisi, achieved by the news, gathered in prayer: "The Franciscan community of the Sacred Convent of Assisi Lord entrusts to the 'soul of the poet Alda Merini and participates in the pain of those who are grieving his loss." He said the keeper of the Sacred Convent, Father Giuseppe Piemontese.
Merini between the Franciscans and, in fact, there was a special relationship, somehow, was part of his latest way of being with his extraordinary openness to the world easier and the other arts less "educated". About two years ago, in fact, in the upper church, we hosted a concert by Lucio Dalla-inspired verses Merini Alda. She was proud and Franciscans had fallen in love with this woman and her grumpy but sweet way to exist.

larepubblica.it

I do not need money.
I need feelings,
of words, words chosen carefully,
flowers of these thoughts,
Rose said attendance,
dreams that inhabit the trees,
of songs that do the dancing statues,
of stars that murmur to 'lovers' ears.
I need poetry,
this magic that burns the heaviness of words,
that evokes emotions and gives new color.

Alda Merini (Terre d'Amore, 2003)

They are very restless when I bind to the space

Sometimes God kills lovers because they do not want to be exceeded in love

Slander is a word toothless when it arrives at its destination puts the iron jaws

The true measure of man is peace

Alda Merini (Aphorisms)

Official site of Alda Merini