New Book, Prunes and Prisms

I just signed my half of a new book contract with Lavender Ink. They are publishing the book Prunes and Prisms/Prugne and Primi that I have collaboratively written with Serena Piccoli. We started working on this collaboratively written project during the COVID shutdown, and this book represents the first part of the project. It's a dual language English and Italian book.

The Italian literary critic Giorgia Monti says of it, "Stratifications, changes of plan and deviations of meaning are also found on a semantic level in the precipitation from one word to another, from one line to another that Piccoli and Allegrezza shrewdly compose."

Here's an excerpt from one of the poems in both English and Italian.

I work to unhinge language from violence
knitting 6 atoms up and down simultaneously
while singing
songs of Innocence and of Experience
under a bridge

where I mutter memories in a mischievous mussel
and crack the shell in patterns for
good.
The acoustics are off, and I descend into an
underground lab
filled with maps, charts, and spineless books
where I always fantasize about men and mice
while chewing old wood.

_____

lavoro per scardinare il linguaggio dalla violenza
e lavoro a maglia 6 atomi che vanno su e giù contemporaneamente
mentre canticchio
canti dell’Innocenza e dell’Esperienza
sotto un ponte

dove mormoro ricordi in una cozza maliziosa
e rompo per sempre il guscio
in schemi.
L'acustica è spenta e scendo in un
laboratorio sotterraneo
pieno di mappe, grafici e libri senza dorso
dove fantastico sempre su uomini e topi
mentre mastico legno vecchio.