ANNA MARIA DALL'OLIO

ANNA MARIA DALL'OLIO

MIMINA

(Cameroon)

Twenty wives. Soon I was seen.

If your boss is not taken, you’ll be killed.

To Italy I fled & fled.

My friends: 50 euros in my hand.

My heart: stolen more than once.

My body: shaken in shrieking dance.

I went to the east, I went to the west:

everywhere I found no rest

every time I got the sack:

my hands, only too black.

Swift success struck me by Carriage:

next, I met love & marriage.

At last. Life is not a miscarriage.

IN SPITE OF YOU

A bang in the door, a flash in the night,

cries of madness, claws of blood,

please, oh please, stop it soon.

Hands strike & strike the blow,

a blade on the lap, hands tightly tied,

clocks strike midnight, power poisons the pain,

such, such a shame is going to end.

I will bless my friends,

I will bless my judge,

at last by far the blackest night sets

in spite of you.

DOCTOR, HEAL PEOPLE’S TOUCH

Months & years

rapes & stains

patient eyes, scratched cheeks,

broken noses, torn clothes.

Too many hands squeezed our blood

too many feet crushed us to death

our wrath surged like a wave

our anger makes us very relentless.

The best flowers stopped blooming so much.

Horror was deeply rooted in our hearts

sorrow took deep roots in our scars.

Doctor, heal people’s touch.

Covered with mud

buried with dung

we learnt to hug

we learnt to act.

We need to move in the clearest sunshine

we want to dance at night in the softest moonlight

we know we can sing only together:

our dance & love song will make us proud.

ANNA MARIA DALL'OLIO

ANNA MARIA DALL’OLIO: MA Languages (Pisa, 1985), BA Letters (Pisa, 2004). She devoted herself to poetry and playwriting. In 2005 she was ranked second in "Hanojo - via Rendevuo", a Vietnamese cultural competition for the millennial celebration of Hanoj (1010-2010). She published 4 collections of poems in Italian: "L’acqua opprime" (“Water anguishes”, 2016), “Fruttorto sperimentale” (“Experimental food forest”, 2016), "Latte & Limoni" (“Milk and lemons”, 2014), "L’angoscia del pane" (“Bread is sorrow”, 2010). She also wrote "Tabelo" (“Table”, 2006), a play in Esperanto. Several Italian poets and literary critics have expressed their favorable opinions on her works. She published her poems in sundry anthologies and wrote for a few literary magazines as well as webzines. Italian scholar Gianfranco Cotronei has recently edited “Le sirene di cartone di Anna Maria Dall’Olio” (“Anna Maria Dall’Olio’s cardboard sirens”, 2017) .a monograph about her 10-year-old literary career.