“Mi dia un cervello, confezione in scatola cranica, grazie”(Give me a brain, packaged in a skull, thanks): when poetry gives advice for shopping.
Rome, August 5th, 2024 – Mario Campanino returns to the bookstore with a new provocative title Vendesi uomo (Man for sale), twenty excerpts in poetry from a strange commercial ad in which life itself is offered on the market.
From his debut in 2011 with Napoletani. Poesie su una civiltΓ in declino (Neapolitans. Poems about a falling civilization), in which the insult is used as a stimulator of consciences, to the more recent L’angelo morto (The dead angel) (also published in English by Olympia Publishers), Campanino continues in the search for a language that does not want to leave indifferent.
In this new work, the author attacks us with the words of a sales announcement, as when he writes about selling shoulders with a
“predisposizione portacroce”, o cervello “andato qualche volta in sovraccarico / poi opportunamente svuotato / e ricondizionato per nuovo utilizzo / confezione in scatola cranica”
(predisposition to carry the cross, or a brain that has sometimes overloaded / then appropriately emptied / and reconditioned for new use / packaged in a skull).
Vendesi uomo, continuing the intimate and existential research that Campanino also traced with Figli (Children) (2012) and Rugiada (Dew) (2015), asks us, ultimately, what our value is on the world market, after having dedicated our entire lives to the world.
For Alessio Fusi, who signed the introduction to the book, “Vendesi uomo can be understood as a catalogue of sensibilities, of denied desires, of long-unexpressed contradictions.”
The book is published by Ronzani Editore and contains iconic photographs by Danilo Massi, characterised by a harsh use of black and white, which contribute to reinforcing the contradictions highlighted by Campanino.
