After debuting in 2023, from November 20th to the 30th of the month, the most important one has started International Poetry Therapy Festival of Italy. The title of this second edition is Through. Words of well-being for all ages, dedicated to the theme of Poetry therapy in developmental ages.
The Poetry Therapy Festival, curated by Mille Gru APS and PoesiaPresente – Monza School of Poetry, takes place in collaboration with ASST Brianza, thanks to your valuable contribution of the Monza and Brianza Community Foundation and the Cariplo Foundation.
«After the debut of the first Festival» explains Dome Bulfaro «the need emerged to make the proposal biennial to create a recurring event dedicated to those who deal with this form of art therapy and who work on its development and affirmation in Italy, having as reference the most significant experiences at an international level».
A rich and varied schedule, designed to involve both professionals and a wider public thanks to the opportunities offered by workshops, readings, exhibitions and book presentations.
«It should be underlined that Poetry Therapy, among the various therapeutic arts present in the Italian context, is the least known and practiced, however it is certainly one of the most effective due to the precision with which it manages to work on an unconscious level» he recalls Doctor Paolo Maria Manzalini, «if abroad it is a recognized therapeutic art, with its own professional registers and protocols, in Italy there is still a long way to go.”
The two artistic and scientific directors, the poet performer Dome Bulfaro and doctor Paolo Maria Manzalini, explain the reasons for this title: «You are not born without going through, you cannot grow without going through. You can understand all the beauty of healing, flourishing and fading only by going through, only if I cross and I let myself cross. There are new bridges for the ages of every human being who lives under the arch of suffering and illness, there are opportunities to build arches of Wellbeing under the sign of conscious care and Poetry. There are people who know how to listen to every oscillation, people who know when and how to open and close, people who know how to shelter themselves for those who live exposed to the storm, people who pass through the cracks, shatter, and yet remain whole.”
The two artistic and scientific directors, the poet performer Dome Bulfaro (left) and doctor Paolo Maria Manzalini
The Festival is structured in a international conference in presence (at the Auditorium of the Vimercate Hospital in collaboration with ASST Brianza), four round tables online and via zoom with Poetry therapy experts Italians and foreigners, three exhibitionsone poetry show followed by a reading and two training laboratories.
The Festival is preceded by two previews on November 20th and 21st, designed to introduce the works: Thursday 20 November, the book will be presented at the Virginia e Co bookshop in Monza, at 7 pm Experiencing fear And Strangelove (Edizioni San Paolo) by Elisa Veronesi and Paolo Maria Manzalini, while Friday 21st the talk will be held at 9pm at the Spazio Heart in Vimercate Through Art: care and relationship moderated by Simona Cesana. The speech by Valentina Selini, art therapist at the former Paolo Pini Psychiatric Hospital, by the educator Laura Fontana and followed by the talk by the psychologist Valeria Bianchi Mian. They will be presented on the same evening the three exhibitions organized for the Festival. The first, hosted by the Vimercate Hospital, REFLECTIONS. Traveling between shadows and new lights it is a photographic exhibition created by the CPS Vimercate photo group – ASST Brianza; the second, which can be visited on November 29th on the occasion of the conference at the Auditorium of the Vimercate Hospital, is the exhibition of the artefacts of the ateliers Wool games And The paper brush organized by the CPS – ASST Brianza, while the third Trees on the move by Dome Bulfaro, after the extraordinary success it had at the Pasquinelli Foundation in Milan, will be on display at the Spazio Heart in Vimercate until January 2026.
Thursday 27 November the Festival officially begins thanks to four round tables online and on zoom with Italian and international speakers. From 8.30am to 9.30pm there will be talks dedicated to different periods of life. It starts with a focus on adolescence to which the first two talks are dedicated (8.30-12.30 the first, 11-13 the second) with the 2024 Poetry Slam world champion Lady La Profeta, the writer, poet and dance therapist Valentina Giordano, the children’s author Azzurra D’Agostinothe coordinator and pedagogical manager of Anno Unico, a school for adolescents who do not go to school, Davide Fant, the South African slammer poet Xabiso Vili, Poetry Slam world champion 2022, the author Alessandra Racca, the psychologist and poet-performer Viola Margaglio, the Sicilian poet-performer Eleonora Fisco. The third talk (3-5pm) is, however, dedicated to childhood. Among the speakers was Spanish poet therapist and transdisciplinary educator María Ortega Garcíathe teacher and poet Giacomo Nucci, the bookseller Chiara Basile, the children’s author Giusi Quarenghiwhile the last meeting (6.30-9.30pm) turns its gaze to adulthood which will be investigated thanks to the voice of the Englishman Jon Sayers, psychodynamic coach and expressive writing facilitator, the co-president of the Mexican International Academy for Poetry Therapy Alejandra Monroy Sauri, the founder of the International Barcelona Journaling Festival Marusha Mozolevskaya, the psychophysiologist Sara Della Giovampaola and the Gestalt psychotherapist Leonora Cupane.
Friday 28 Novemberat 8.30 pm, at the PoesiaPresente space in via Donatello 12 in Monza, the poetry show will be held with texts and poems by Silvia Vecchini, the dramaturgy of Dome Bulfaro and the DiVerso Choir of the PoesiaPresente poetry school. A meeting between Silvia Vecchini and the publisher follows at 9.30pm Giovanna Zoboli starting from the author’s latest book There is a poem waiting for you (Topipittori).
Saturday 29 November, morning and afternoon, the international conferencewith live domestic and foreign guests at the Auditorium of the Vimercate Hospital. If the morning will be dedicated to interventions on General knowledge in relation to poetry as a cure thanks to the reflections of the epistemologist Barbara Sangiovanni, the poet Silvia Vecchini, Sigmund Freud University professor Tamara Trebesthe professor of the University of Turin Vincenzo Alastra, the poet, poetry and Alzheimer’s expert Franca Grisonithe afternoon, however, is aimed at exploring the specific practical interventions of Poetry Therapy: Paola Perfetti will illustrate the experience in the first Alzheimer’s village in Italy, Il Paese Ritrovato in Monzawhile the American poet Gary Glazner will retrace the practices ofAlzheimer’s Poetry Project directed by him, it has become the most applied project with Alzheimer’s patients in the world. The role of Bibliotherapy in mourning is expressed by Professor at Ghent University Dimitra Didangelouwhile oriental poetry – in particular haiku and renku – considered a precious therapeutic resource will be remembered by the teacher ofUniversity of Padua Ines Testoni, director of the CAT Master (Creative Arts Therapies) together with the writer and thanatologist Laura Liberale, master’s coordinator. The theater and narrative medicine workshops for the humanization of care and for the support of the adolescent population will be explored in depth by the professional educator and biosystemic counselor of the Cona Hospital in Ferrara Alberto Urro and by the Project Manager for training at the AUSL companies and the University Hospital of Ferrara Michele Dalpozzo. Finally, Dome Bulfaro, professor at the University of Verona and founder with Simona Cesana of PoesiaPresente – School of Poetry Therapy of Monza, will conclude the work with a speech dedicated to taking care of one’s inner garden.
Sunday 30 November, at the PoesiaPresente headquarters, the Festival ends with two training workshops in Poetry Therapy conducted respectively by Dimitra Didangelou and Dome Bulfaro and by Tamara Trebes and Luca Buonaguidi.
The Festival enjoys the patronage of the Order of Surgeons and Dentists of the province of Monza and Brianza-OMCeOMB, BrianzaLibraries, TikiTaka network – balances of being, Coop La Meridiana / The country rediscovered (Monza), Pasquinelli Foundation (Milan), CADOM (Monza), Circular Thoughts (Biella), Le Parole che cura (Ferrara) and takes place in collaboration with Spazio Heart (Vimercate), Virginia e co bookshop (Monza) La Ghiringhella bookshop (Concorezzo).
>>SEE COMPLETE PROGRAM OF THE FESTIVAL DAYS
