Edited by Giuseppina Irene Groccia

REKLAMA

“Singhiozzi di carta”, published by Genesi Editrice in December 2024, is a work that, from the first pages, captures the reader with a writing full of emotional intensity and intellectual depth. Published in the “I gherigli” series, the book is configured as a collection of reflections, images and intuitions that probe the subtle boundary between the experienced and the imagined. They are verses that have matured over time, refined through continuous rewritings, the expression of a tireless search in an attempt to reach peaks of absolute excellence.

The word becomes the vehicle of a poignant and delicate sensitivity, full of deep emotions, as if it were written with blood and heart, yet it transforms into paper matter, fragile and defenseless. In addition to testifying to the fruit of the author’s full literary maturity, the work also offers an act of generous self-sharing.

Dante Maffia’s poetry stands out in the literary panorama as a work of chiselling, a mosaic in which each tile is placed with the care and patience of those who seek eternity in the word. It is not only the fruit of formal research, but the result of an interior journey, an incessant dialogue between the soul and the page, between the heart and the mind. Each verse becomes a heartbeat, a deep echo that propagates beyond time, touching chords that modernity often neglects or no longer knows how to listen to.

Far from the ephemeral and fleeting fashions, Dante Maffia abandons himself to poetry as to a boundless sea, where each wave brings with it fragments of memory, culture and experience, intertwined in a song that defies oblivion. With an almost mystical dedication, the poet files and chisels his verses, making them crystals of meaning, splinters of truth that refract the light of his vision.

His path is not solitary, but passes through the judgment of others, the comparison with critics, with readers, with time itself, aware that authentic poetry does not fear the scrutiny of history. In his words we sense the certainty that the true value of a work is not measured in the immediate, but in the echo that it will leave behind. This is the poet’s bet: not to seek momentary applause, but the immortality of the word, its ability to resonate in those who come after. Poetry, for Maffia, is a message delivered to the future, a seed planted in the furrow of time, waiting to sprout when the world is ready to recognize its greatness.

The collection “Singiozzi di carta” is charged with a poignant intensity starting from its title, an evocation of a pain that pours onto the page, as if writing were an interrupted breath, a sob that becomes verb and substance.

Here the paper is not only a support, but becomes pulsating flesh, an open wound, a silent confidant of emotions that translate into verses. These are light testimonies, confessions held back and at the same time revealing, allusions never made explicit that, through their silent game of subtraction, reveal the author’s intimacy. Each verse is a revelation, a fragment of life that vibrates in silence, where each word seems to guard a heartbeat and the beat of a hidden heart.

Only ink can give shape to this secret, translating into sound the intensity of an emotion that would otherwise remain in the shadows.

As Paul Valéry wrote, „the word is a breath of the soul, a shadow that becomes shape, and only in it does our heart find a voice.”

In this context, writing becomes an act of resistance, but not in its obvious and shouted form. It becomes silent, it insinuates itself into the dark folds of existence, among the shadows in which both pain and hope are reflected, opposing oblivion with the quiet of an invisible struggle.

Maffia’s poetry, in this collection, takes the form of a subdued yet powerful lament, the sound of a soul that empties itself through ink, transfiguring pain into beauty, suffering into resistance.

A writing that becomes the terrain of a deep and cryptic search for truth, where the reader glimpses only fleeting fragments, shadows of reality that dissolve as soon as they are touched. The work guides us towards the hidden meaning, skillfully concealed behind every word by its author, and invites us to lose ourselves in a labyrinth of continuous references, in which every verse is both an escape route and a trap.

The great intellectual and literary talent of the author – nominated several times for the Nobel Prize – is certainly not the result of chance, but arises from the extraordinary ability to evoke other worlds through a writing that ultimately becomes an exercise of rare mastery.

His literary art, finely sculpted and full of meaning, invites us to explore the mystery of his thought and to recognize our own condition as elusive readers, lost in the folds of a work that is both a refuge and a prison.

Even the choice of the cover reveals an intention perfectly in harmony with the spirit of the book. The work “The Flying Dutchman” by Albert Pinkham Ryder is not accidental: the legendary vessel, condemned to sail forever, becomes a symbol of poetry itself, destined to sail the sea of ​​eternity, suspended between oblivion and glory, waiting for new eyes to welcome it and offer it a home. The book ends with an epistolary that collects extracts from the dense correspondence between Dante Maffia, since his youth, and numerous prominent figures in the literary scene. Among these, the one who struck me most is Leonardo Sciascia, a figure I deeply admire. Two writers different in style and themes, but united by a rigorous intellectual commitment, both driven by an inexhaustible search for truth through the word. In these lines, Sciascia not only offers words of encouragement and esteem, but also foretells the destiny and success that awaited the author, recognizing in him a talent that would, without a doubt, assert itself over time.

This precious collection of letters is accompanied by the publication of extracts from letters, reviews and prefaces, collected in the second part of the text, which represent the critical homage to the poetic genius of Dante Maffia. These documents testify to the unanimous appreciation of the critics together with the profound impact that Maffia’s work has had on contemporary intellectuals and writers.

This is how the book ends, offering us an intimate and profound portrait of the author, accompanied by a public and collective recognition of his literary greatness, as a seal of the value and relevance of his contribution to contemporary literature.