“I don’t want to talk about love, I just want to make it.” (D’amore non voglio parlare, lo voglio solamente fare.) I hear this Patrizia Cavalli line, made famous in Kenneth Koch’s poem “Talking to Patrizia” and think, I don’t want to talk about poems, I just want to make them. And yet here I am talking about poems. And I will talk about them endlessly (the way Patrizia wound up talking about love in Koch’s poem)…or at least until the end of the week.
This reminds me of a Kenneth Koch comic I have up in my bathroom. I’ll scan and post The Italian Cabdriver Comics and maybe a few others in the next couple of days. It goes like this: The Italian Cabdriver said Poetry? Poetry in English?…Nay Nay Signore…Poetry, Poetry…is in Italian!…What is your word for nature, for example?…”Nature,” I weakly said, knowing I was defeated…Ah hah! exclaimed..my driver Luigi Piccione hailing from Paestum, Lacania…But now resident in Rome…”In OUR language…IN OUR LANGUAGE,” HE SAID”…”IT IS”…LA NATURA!
I’ve been to Paestum. My sister and I went on a wild boat and bus trek there about 15 years ago. It’s home to the enchanting Tomb of the Diver, a fresco of a diver painted on the interior of a tomb. At first people thought it was the tomb of a diver. Then, given the things they found in the grave, a musician.
From the archive; first posted by Tanya Larkin on June 17, 2012
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Author: The Best American Poetry
