The evening is dedicated to La poesia degli alberi. Un’antologia di testi su alberi, arbusti e qualche rampicante, a collection of works curated by Mino Petazzini and published by Luca Sossella editore. The 1,056-page anthology brings together 420 poets who have dedicated works to 76 plants, from oaks to vines. From the epic Gilgameš, humanity’s most ancient poem, to Walt Whitman, who saw the destiny of a nation in the sacrifice of a giant sequoia, to the meticulous knowledge of plants of Pascoli and the clear relationship with nature of authors who best embody modern sensitivity, trees have always been an irreplaceable and recurring presence in literature throughout the ages and all over the world. Massimo Popolizio reads a selection of poems. Mino Petazzini will talk with Laura Pugno, poet, essayist and author.

Luca Sossella editore was founded in Rome in 2000, and the publishing house’s first publication, the personal anthology of Vittorio Gassman (an audiobook in which Gassman reads 19th and 20th-century poems), brings together the guiding principles of Luca Sossella Editore’s research: the voice as a means of learning, poetry as an examination of language, a reflection on the media and tools of conscience. Over the years it has also branched into the study of scientific and technological frontiers, carried out through the setting up of collaboration projects with theatres, museums, businesses and educational institutes, in which books are just one of the pivotal points.

Mino Petazzini, has been the director since 2001 of the Villa Ghigi Foundation in Bologna, a centre for environmental education. He has curated an extensive anthology of poetry dedicated to trees, with a few excursions into prose, by a range of authors from the most ancient to the most contemporary, and in part inspired by his daily work in the park of Villa Ghigi. Having graduated in philosophy with a thesis on Bob Dylan, from the end of the 1970s to the 1980s he was part of a group of young poets who gravitated around Roberto Roversi, and later published six collections of poetry as well as a number of other books and has maintained constant activity in the fields of education and awareness raising on environmental matters.

Laura Pugno, poet, essayist and author. Her latest works include the novels Sirene and La ragazza selvaggia,  Campiello Award, Literature (Marsilio 2016-2018); the essay In territorio selvaggio (Nottetempo 2018); l’Oracolo manuale per poete e poeti, with Giulio Mozzi (Sonzogno 2020) and the collection of poetry Noi (Amos/A27 2020). She collaborates with L’Espresso magazine and Le parole e le cose. She created the poetry festival I quattro elementi (Madrid 2018-2019), the podcasts Oltrelontano. Poesia come paesaggio for Radio3 Suite and Mappa immaginaria della poesia italiana contemporanea (Il Saggiatore, December 2021).