Maria Luisa Spaziani

Maria Luisa Spaziani (7 December 1922 – 30 June 2014) was an Italian poet.

Biography

Spaziani was born in Turin. At nineteen, she founded the review Il dado, working with collaborators such as Vasco Pratolini, Sandro Penna and Vincenzo Ciaffi. Virginia Woolf sent her a chapter of her novel The Waves, autographed to Alla piccola direttrice (To the young editor). Spaziani did not contribute her own poems, however, feeling that they were not of sufficient quality.

In the 1950s Spaziani became involved with the poet Eugenio Montale (1896–1981). Montale encouraged Spaziani to write poetry and was a significant influence in her early style. Maria Luisa Spaziani's first book of poetry, Le acque del sabato, appeared in 1954. Montale drew upon his affair with her in creating the character of la Volpe ("the Fox") in his work La bufera e altro (1956). Montale's poem "Da un lago svizzero" is an acrostic forming her name, Maria Luisa Spaziani. (Spaziani eventually published her correspondence with Montale, some eight hundred letters, in 1995.)

After travelling extensively in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Greece, France, and the Soviet Union, Spaziani chose to settle in Rome. Starting from 1964 she taught French language and literature at the University of Messina. She published extensively, as a poet, translator, and scholar.

Spaziani was nominated thrice for the Nobel Prize for Literature; 1990, 1992 and 1997. Her poetry combines a vivid and immediate sense of the natural world with a rich appreciation of literary culture and tradition. Though echoes of past poets appear in her work, Spaziani's voice is clearly her own, sensitive and controlled.

Spaziani was the president of the Centro Internazionale Eugenio Montale, which confers the Premio Montale, a literary prize for translations and publications of Italian verse.

Spaziani died on 30 June 2014 at the age of 91.

List of works

Each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:

1954: Le acque del sabato

1959: Luna lombarda

1962: Il gong

1966: Utilità della memoria

1970: L’occhio del ciclone

1976: Ultrasuoni

1977: Transito con catene

1981: Geometria del disordine

1986: La stella del libero arbitrio

1990: Giovanna d'Arco

1992: Torri di vedata

1996: I fasti dell’ortica

1998: La traversata dell'oasi

1999: La radice del mare

1999: Un fresco castagneto

2000: La freccia

2002: Poesie dalla mano sinistra