{"id":144,"date":"2011-10-08T10:35:25","date_gmt":"2011-10-08T09:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/padraigrooney.com\/blog\/?p=144"},"modified":"2011-10-08T12:52:16","modified_gmt":"2011-10-08T11:52:16","slug":"poetry-on-the-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/padraigrooney.com\/blog\/poetry-on-the-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry on the Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Isola di San Giulio, Lago d'Orta<\/p><\/div>\n

Lago d’Orta is one of the smaller of the Italian lakes, scooped out by a retreating glacier beside the better known Lago Maggiore. The town of Orta San Giulio, perched at the end of its peninsula on the eastern shore, faces a tiny picturesque island. For the eleventh year, lake, town and island have hosted a festival of English poetry. The patron is the current Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, Poetessa della Corte Inglese<\/em>, as the programme rather grandly puts it. Present too is Gillian Clarke, Poeta Nazionale Gallese<\/em> – national poet of Wales. The organiser is Gabriel Griffin, who resides on the island, and who has assembled a motor-launch full of poets from all corners of the world. There ought to be a collective noun for poets: a posse, a pod, a pride of poets? The weekend includes readings, an impromptu jaunt around the Sacro Monte, a Franciscan complex of chapels overlooking the town, and the kind of elevated feasting that occurs whenever hungry poets get together. There could not be a more beautiful place in which to to assemble the muses.<\/p>\n

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Poetry in lights<\/p><\/div>\n

On opening night, at the excellent Ristorante Imbarcadero<\/em>, after the raspberry-drenched panna cotta<\/em>, a notice from the local police catches my eye. It informs us of the slim possibility a satellite fragment might land in il nostro paese<\/em>. We are advised to stay indoors between 21.25 and 22.03 and not to approach any strange flying objects – di non raccogogliere o manipolare eventuali frammenti rinvenuti… <\/em>But the stars are out, the low-slung motorboats make their way to the island, and nothing falls from the heavens except the poetry of the occasion.<\/p>\n

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Hortus Conclusus: enclosed garden, from the Song of Solomon 4:12: "Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus..." (A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.)<\/p><\/div>\n