Gabriella Garofalo
Gabriella Garofalo, told me that she fell in love with the English language at the age of six, when she uttered her first English word, “pencil.” In this case it seems that the pencil was a kind of linguistic Cupid’s arrow, committing Gabriella to a life long quest, delving within for words in a language not her native tongue.
I asked her to write us something to accompany her work. The following is her response:
“As an artisan of the word I feel compelled to dig into myself, albeit I am only too aware that I do not know whether I shall find something and what is this “something”.
When I do I often wonder: am I responsible for my findings? No, no more than an archaeologist is for ancient stones, no more than an astronomer is for planets. Words, stones, planets are here all along, we simply have to look for them.
In dealing with words I always try to be ruthlessly candid and dispassionate. I challenge every images, look my obsessions in their eyes and try to reshape them through my words in an attempt at going beyond my very same words.
My goal is to reach the élan of Gothic cathedrals in spite of the awful voice of groove asking for shabby ordinariness.
Do the answers I receive in my quest come to me in flying nimbleness?
Should I say they do I would be sadly wrong: they do not. I pay those scarce moments when words fly with the many and many times I struggle, I trudge, and all the while feeling inside my mind captive words screaming to be set free.
Ever since I began my quest I have been lucky enough as to find shelter in two poets whom I consider my spiritual mothers: Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. They taught me never to be afraid of words. They taught me that if I am bold, candid and enquiring one day I shall be able to handle that burning high- tension wire some call “poetry”. Thanks to them, one day I might become a poet: something much harder and higher than an artisan of the word. I am waiting.”
Read Gabriella’s poems:
See Gabriella Garofalo's translation from the Italian of the poem, Alcuni fiori, at "The Writer's Drawer".