Alda Merini
"I'm a little furious bee"
“The sign is nothing other than the claim of the sublime.”
“I'm not beautiful, I'm just erotic.”
These are just some of the famous phrases and aphorisms that accompanied the life and poetic work of Alda Merini, an Italian poet born and died in Milan, one of the personalities who most characterized the 20th century Italian culture and beyond.
Alda Merini was born and lived hand in hand with her poetry, and vice versa, her poetry was born and lived hand in hand with her life path. Her precocious debut as a writer tells us this: at just fifteen years old, she was in fact pervaded by profound sensitivity and mysticism, all united by lucid and clear tones of writing, which she retained throughout her life and for all her works. Already at a very young age, Alda demonstrated a strong inclination and intense emotional sensitivity towards writing, poetry, spiritual themes, and even music (studying piano), despite not having a family environment inclined to support her in her artistic interests.
Life and Literary Beginnings
She was born on 21 March 1931 in Milan to a family of humble origins, in which she was encouraged by her father (a modest insurance employee) to read the books in his library and, at the same time, opposed in this activity by her mother, a woman rather harsh, detached, and practical, not at all inclined to creativity, who had destined her daughter to an exclusive future as a wife and mother. For her part, Alda regularly attended primary school with excellent results and a great love for study (especially literary), but upon completion, she was induced by her parents to interrupt her studies and instead enroll in a professional institute for work placement. The phrase of her father, Nemo Merini, has remained famous, addressing his daughter by saying, "You don't live by writing."
Young Alda, however, never gave up. She tried to attend the Liceo Manzoni in Milan but failed to pass the Italian exam (incredible but true): she was probably thwarted by an environment that was too academic and conventional for her way of expressing herself. It was in the same period that she began and continued her study of music and the piano but, above all, made her debut as an author in the Anthology of Contemporary Italian Poetry from 1909 to 1949, supported by her first teacher and supporter, Giacinto Spagnoletti, who published there the poems "Luce" and "The Hunchback." From there, Alda Merini's world opened up to new acquaintances and friendships with artists and writers of the time, including the famous Salvatore Quasimodo, the great Italian poet and translator, an exponent of hermeticism, who in 1959 won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Despite the wonderful literary birth of this young and promising poet, however, the life and social context of the world's populations was undergoing profound upheavals and devastating repercussions in those years, due to the outbreak of the Second World War. In fact, in 1940 Italy, which had declared itself neutral until 1939, actively entered the world conflict by order of Duce Benito Mussolini, alongside Nazi Germany. All this had repercussions on the entire world order and, more specifically for what we are dealing with, on the life of Merini, who in 1943 was forced to abandon her home in Milan because it was destroyed by bombing; as a result, her family disunited to find shelter elsewhere. From that moment on, Alda found herself in conditions of complete poverty and was forced, to survive, to work in the rice fields of Vercelli and to live in a farmhouse with her mother. She even helped her mother give birth to her younger brother, amidst tremendous suffering, while the father and older sister were forced to remain in Milan. As the poet herself said of that experience: "We were all crazy."
The Appearance of Alda's Disease
After three years, the Merini family managed to reunite in Milan, settling in the first building found vacant: a room previously inhabited by a rag seller. Thus they were all together again, but from that moment Alda's life would never be the same again, nor her artistic production. During the post-war period and the arduous reconstruction of the whole of Italy, in 1947, the young writer encountered what she herself defined as "the first shadows of her mind" and was interned in a psychiatric clinic in Milan, where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (called “manic-depressive psychosis” by doctors at the time). Alda Merini would leave that experience deeply impressed and, despite having many friends around to support her (including Giorgio Manganelli, with whom she would have a tormented relationship), her life would remain definitively marked by moments of psychic peace interspersed with mental illness.
The Resumption of Alda Merini's Poetic Activity
In 1953 she married Ettore Carniti, a worker and famous trade unionist of the time, with whom she would never have a peaceful relationship, but with whom she had her four daughters: Emanuela, Barbara, Flavia, and Simona, who today manage the official website dedicated to their mother online. In this period, Merini published a volume of verses (The Presence of Orpheus) and, after a few years, "Nozze Romane," "Paura di Dio," and "Tu sei Pietro," works all based on her personal life experiences.
LEONARDO CENDAMO//GETTY IMAGES
Alda and the Mental Hospital
From 1961 we once again had a long period of darkness and silence for the poet: until 1972, in fact, she remained interned in a mental hospital following her mental pathology, which would torment her for the rest of her life. This state of consciousness would be constantly present in her poetic and literary work, as well as in her daily life: the experience in the mental hospital is constantly alluded to, to the point of being explicitly declared, in writings. Precisely this suffering led her to start writing again, until in 1979 she composed "her masterpiece" (as defined by Maria Corti): The Holy Land, in reference to the "promised land" which for the author is made up of poetry and writing, which led her to win the Librex Montale Award in 1993. Unfortunately, Merini's suffering did not end there. In 1983 her husband Ettore died, she found herself destitute again and was unable to re-enter the literary world, from which she remained practically neglected until the publication of The Holy Land, which occurred after 1984. She recovered from then on, a period in which she married a doctor much older than her but from whom she would be showered with attention and care, going to live in Taranto. In this period the poet returned to writing, dedicating many texts to her husband Michele Pierri and completing the work The Other Truth. Diary of a Different One.
Alda Merini and the Navigli Period
The mental illness once again took over Alda: due to the severe suffering caused by her husband Michele's terminal illness, she was subsequently interned in Taranto and then, under the yoke of a strong relapse, returned to Milan. Thanks to the care she received in Milan, she recovered and dedicated some texts to Dr. Rizzo, her doctor. Thus, a phase of tranquility began for the poet, starting from the 1990s, known as “the Navigli Period,” one of the most laborious literary periods for Merini. Her fame as a writer and artist grew dramatically, becoming a well-known figure in the media and popularly, even offering many of her writings to friends and acquaintances. From here on her poetic production would become a symbol of Italian literature of the 20th century throughout the world: she won the aforementioned Librex Montale Prize for poetry, her artistic activity became almost unstoppable, and she further won, in 1997, the Procida Prize -Island of Arturo-Elsa Morante, for The Other Truth. Diary of a Different Woman, her first prose book. Many of her poems, aphorisms, and writings were set to music and accompanied by works of art, by master engravers, lithographers, designers, and composers, also with the collaboration of Roberto Vecchioni.
A Contemporary Poetic Symbol
From 2000 onwards, her aphoristic production became very rich, her poetic activity increasingly fruitful, until she became one of the best-known women in the whole world. Her works are now also published by famous publishing houses such as Salani, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Garzanti, Mondadori, and many others. Alda Merini became well known and appreciated by the general public, so much so that in 2009 a documentary was dedicated to her by director Cosimo Damiano Damato, entitled Alda Merini, a Woman on the Stage, presented at the 66th Venice International Film Festival. These are also the years of Merini's so-called "mystical phase," connected to the first years of her literary production (that of her youth) which, as then, proposed a series of texts of a spiritual nature (in her early days, in fact, the young Alda felt a strong religious vocation to become a nun, which was also opposed by her parents). The famous Magnificat, a Meeting with Mary, accompanied by drawings by Ugo Nespolo and performed at the theater in 2006, belongs to this period. In 2003-2004 we have the publication of Clinica dell'abbandono, her famous work divided into two parts; subsequently, an album by the singer Milva entitled Milva canta Merini was recorded, the collection Le briglie d'oro and the noir novel entitled La nera novella were published. After 2005, the poet's health conditions worsened inexorably. She passed away on November 1, 2009, at the San Paolo hospital in Milan, due to a tumor caused by smoking her "beloved and inseparable cigarettes." Alda Merini loved to say: “I have enjoyed life to the full, despite what they are saying about the mental hospital. I have enjoyed life because I also like the hell of life, and life is often hell... for me life has been beautiful because I paid dearly for it."
Some Verses and the Poetic Conception of Alda Merini
“I wait for you every day I turn off little by little and I forgot your face. They ask me if my desperation be equal to your absence no, it's something more: it is a gesture of fixed death that I don't know how to give to you”- Alda Merini
The poetics and narrative of this legendary 1900 author originate from her profound suffering, mystical ecstasy, and torment. She created her own "promised land," as is evident from her writings, through her verses and aphorisms, making literature a true personal psychotherapy. However, her poetry, in addition to being visionary/orphic, remains simple, lucid, at times sharp: Merini, in fact, using and transforming discomfort and illness, purifies herself and the world around her from the suffering and hypocrisy of the time, in which mental illness was still considered an insurmountable social taboo, leading to total marginalization. Alda Merini's art, often expressed in a harsh and non-linear way, establishes an agreement between dream and poetry, passing through the experience of the flesh of the human being; it reaches, describes, and celebrates the entire emotional range of man, which goes from pain, disappointment, and marginalization to love, passion, and ecstasy of the spirit, a theme that has always been present in the author's history. An inexhaustible literary production, that of Alda Merini, until the last days of her death: interspersed with periods of serenity and periods of severe illness, it developed through personal and social conflicts, walking hand in hand with her, flowing like water from a river, the same way she loved to talk, write, smoke, and love.
“I have the sensation of lasting too long, of not being able to switch off: like all old people, my roots struggle to leave the earth. But then I often say to everyone that that cross without justice that was my mental hospital did nothing but reveal to me the great power of life"-Alda Merini
