Menotti Lerro Quotes

The carpentry smelt of trees and incense. / My father spread white Vinavil in grooves, / inserted steel nails with two short, intense blows. / I imitated him, little hammer, between my hands, his tools in miniature… / I dreamt about the Trojan horse. / Then in the evening I hid myself / among sawdust: There is no safer place / in the world he said, with open arms. / Nowadays I take no cover / but in his eyes / (in the calm before the storm); / piece by piece I tidy up / our carpentry. (From The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, p. 42)

We grow old in people’s eyes / or when, opening a wardrobe, / the mirror takes us by surprise. / We grow old, half-plunged / in our rivers / seeing portraits reflected / when images flow among a thousand folds; / we grow old in twisted reflections of cutlery / and glasses. (From The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, p. 41)

The absence of one we love is not solitude, it is severance.

We were born as a blank page and we will die as a black page.

When I think of poetry, I like to think of it as follows: as the echo of a splash of the sea upon the shadows of those thousand-year-old rocks, that remember – after the continuous modeling of the wind and water – the shadows of the bodies of human beings. A splash capable of emitting a redeeming scent that, once smelt, we cannot live without. (Defining Poetry. From The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, p. 9)

Betraying who you love is like betraying yourself!

We should never be afraid of our dreams, but only of who doesn’t want to make us dream.

The infinite is inside / our eyes; / not outside, not in the things / of this world, / but in their shadows. / Night, Death, Blinking, / take us through the universe again, / out of time. (From: The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, p. 40)

Poetry cannot be imprisoned in one definition and therefore I myself would have a lot of them, yet no definite and certain definition. I will define, consequently, this literary genre in a different way in comparison with my previous definitions. To being with, I would say that poetry itself is a tool that defines us and the universe, because it is quintessence. (Defining Poetry. From The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011, p. 1)

Wherever will the promised light be? Is there a paradise among the clouds maybe, rest in the wind, refreshment on the seabed? Where does the dark, the insomnia, the madness, the crying, the illness, the death finish? Where does God hide himself?

La filosofia fallirà per sempre il suo primario obiettivo, poiché ricerca qualcosa che non esiste.

Credo che alla base di ogni artista ci sia un’assenza.

Remember that the sun doesn’t belong more to a man than to you. Never let yourself to be put in the shadow.

Non abbiamo che il corpo. L’anima è un’invenzione, polvere di croce.

Spesso dietro un grande uomo c’è una grande sofferenza.