Fiorenzo Toso (1962–2022)

It seems that the first passion of the linguist, university lecturer, and poet Fiorenzo Toso was archaeology. After all, throughout his life he continued to study the past, digging not in the earth, but in language, in this enormous heritage of words that have been handed down to us, and which have not yet all been explored, studied, and catalogued. Toso was a miner of words and once he had found these precious stones, he refined them and used them in poetry. In the early days, when Toso’s poems first appeared, one might have thought that they were written in the dialect of Arenzano, a rustic Genoese, due to the prevalence of archaic, obsolete terms. In reality, it was a literary Genoese, constructed with the contribution of terms that were indeed rustic, but also cultured, taken from the lexicon of ancient Genoese writers. All this in order to restore the dignity of Ligurian as a language, which had been lost due to social changes and various historical, political and literary events. That was the intent, and indeed he had constructed a language, which was also at the same time his own style. We are under no illusion that by simply using these same words, we will obtain a style equal or even only resembling Toso’s. What is singular to his poetry is completely elusive. As with any true poet, his true personality lies in the style, in the combination of words, in something indefinable that cannot be recovered. It remains like a garden that can be observed from outside, at a certain distance, but which we can no longer enter.

O rattopennugo o no sa

Often, the protagonist of Toso’s poems is the Ligurian landscape, delicately revisited and reinvented with psychological connotations.

O rattopennugo o no sa
che a feuggia a l’é verde
che verde l’é o mâ.

Contento da neutte o no sa
che a feuggia a ven bruña
de ciongio l’amâ.

A luña a fia

A luña a fia
penscëi d’argento
oivi antighi
à l’açimento.

Se peu moî
sens’avei ‘nteiso o cento
de ramme stigge
cegæ da-o vento,

ò vive solo
pe-o ræo momento
che a luña a fia
penscëi d’argento.

Co-i euggi perdui à ponente

Co-i euggi perdui à Ponente
miavimo o sô deslenguâ
e a veia d’un barco da lonxi
confondise con o zinâ.

I öchin, à quell’oa, pan i seugni
che s’emmo ascordou de sugnâ:
fiezzan in sce l’äia ferma
lasciandoseghe rebellâ.

Co-i euggi perdui à Ponente
miavimo o giorno scentâ.

Quello paise ciù mòrto che vivo

In this lyric and the following one, one can sense the influence of J. V. Foix, an author with whom Toso shares the characteristic of being a “word hunter”, a hound of lexical recovery, but instead of the Catalan poet’s surrealist delirium, we soon recognise in these verses a much more placid air of our own homeland and a subdued allusion to the irreversible decline of the Ligurian hinterland.

Quello paise ciù mòrto che vivo
tra çent’atri che conoscio
o m’é cao.

Se peu camminâ pe de oe
tra e miage de pria
sensa vedde persoña
– se i gatti no son de persoñe –
e o sô o no l’arriva
là ‘n fondo à quell’ombra
ch’a s’é deponâ
da mill’anni.

Perdo o cammin
e m’attreuvo inta ciassa
onde i vegi son prie
‘n mezo a-e prie.
Son o tempo chi passa
e chi é fermo,
conoscian e cöse
che s’an da conosce.

– De che mòrte moî, belle gente?
– Da mòrte sottî de l’oivo
da mòrte sottî do Ponente.

Eimo çento eimo dexe eimo uña

Eimo çento eimo dexe eimo uña
feuggia in sce l’ægua
barco de regòrdi
eimo çento eimo dexe
ciù veie che còrpi
lampare into scuo
in sciâ rotta à ponente
eimo çento eimo dexe eimo uña
canson che in sciô vento
a l’é andæta à l’amâ.

Corriendo por la playa, 1908

Having returned to poetry after more than twenty years of creative hiatus, Toso seems to unify in this new phase the numerous cultural solicitations and stratifications and steer them towards a general recapitulation of his favourite themes and his existential quest, thereby also pursuing the aim of increasingly corroborating his project of re-founding in the modern era a literary Genoese language that is ductile, expressive to the utmost, and capable of expressing every nuance of thought. The series of poems inspired by Joaquin Sorolla’s paintings express the sensations felt by the poet in front of the Catalan painter’s works and could be likened to certain Baroque works that sought to fuse together different art forms, but it makes us think above all of theatre: the author gives his voice to characters that present themselves to his imagination one after the other and makes them act for us. In this, Toso is close to his favourite author, Gian Giacomo Cavalli, whose poetry, while falling within the canons of lyric poetry, has a theatrical background, with a typical search for the precious, refined effect, beyond the concepts that the text expresses.

Besugniæ aspëtâ giornæ ciù longhe
äia ciù cada, e in giæa figgeu chi core
descäsi, donde l’æña a beive l’ægua,
figge che rian, vestî gianchi de lin,
i bricchi à tremmoâ inta luxe açeisa
mai tanto fòrte che no a reze i euggi.
No a stæ de luggio: quella che da niatri
a ven d’arvî e de mazzo, e l’é ancon fresco
quande ven seia e scciuppa tutte e reuse.
E aloa partî pe-o viægio di regòrdi
– infançia indefinia, coæ sensa nomme
de cöse sccette che no mettan poia.
Lasciâse andâ comme cometa a-o vento
verso nisciun destin, e sempiterno
fermâ in scî lapri un fattoriso puo.

Pe-o vento neuvo

The long navigation through life, obscured by the seafaring metaphor, eventually sees, as in a glimmer, the presence of the sacred revealed, of an undefined and absolutely nonconfessional God.

Pe-o vento neuvo ti saiæ inandiou
ch’o te portià ‘nde no t’imaginavi
ësighe tære a-o sô mai tanto belle.
Da-a proa sciammi d’öchin comme promisse
e a festa di drafin inta teu scia

(no pâ che t’aggi scompassou ‘nfinia
desteisa de tempeste, ni che scheuggi
e giassi fòrti t’aisci inte l’ammia).

Co-o vento neuvo t’arriviæ ‘na seia
a-o pòrto ciù lontan, desconosciuo
à tanti e tanti: arredossou tra i monti,
d’ægue prefonde, un scâ ciù che seguo.

Comme ti saiæ vegio, l’espeiensa
a t’avià fæto intende quelli segni
che te dian ch’o l’é l’urtimo: a-o fondo
de tanto vive e tanto mondo. Aloa
co-i euggi pin de lagrime e o cheu inscio
ti t’addormiæ inte brasse do teu dio.