Michele Sovente stands among the main contemporary poets of the late twentieth century literature. Past and his sense of belonging to his land are recurrent themes in his works.

 Sovente was born in 1948 in Cappella, an area of the Municipality of Monte di Procida, in the district of the Phlegraean Fields, in the province of Naples. He grew up only with his mother, a full-time barmaid, and his brother, as he lost his father very early. This latter was a tiler who emigrated to France and who is represented in his poems as someone coming from afar. Michele Sovente attended the Seminary in Pozzuoli (a residential school to become deacon), then graduated with a thesis on Eugenio Montale’s poetry. In his school years, he became passionate about the Latin language. This interest led him to compose one of his best-known masterpieces, Cumae, the first work in which three different languages coexist: Italian, Latin and the dialect of Cappella, his native land.

He collaborated with newspapers and magazines and since 2004 he dedicated himself to a lyric column of the newspaper "Il Mattino", which took the name of Controluce, where he published lots of texts in Italian.

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WORKS

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In his works Sovente uses several languages, including Italian, Latin and his native dialect, the "cappellese". In the first two collections, L'uomo al naturale (1978) and Contropar(ab)ola (1981) he deals mainly with political and social issues, using only the Italian language. In 1980 he became interested in psychoanalysis, in particular Jungian psychoanalysis. Later he gave up with social themes and opened up to new interests, introducing the use of another language, Latin. In 1990 he published the bilingual poem Per specula aenigmatis, with this epigraph: "I did not write in Latin, but Latin wrote me". With this statement the poet meant that we are all “written” in Latin as our history descends from it. His Latin is modern: he doesn’t use the classic Latin metrics, also introducing rhymes, absent in Latin poetry. The turning point and success came in 1998 with the publication of Cumae. With this work he won one of the most prestigious prizes for poetry, the Viareggio - Rèpaci Award, in 1998, previously awarded to famous writers such as Eduardo De Filippo, Umberto Saba and Pier Paolo Pasolini. 

In 2002 he published Carbones, a trilingual work in which the poems, in three different languages, show a new layout: the texts are no longer side by side and they result free versions, independent one from the other. In 2005 Sovente tries a new form of expression by publishing Carta e formiche, a book in which the poet combines the poems to their respective drawings, that he himself made. In his last two collections, Bradisismo (2008) and Superstiti (2010), he continues to explore the connection with the Phlegraean territory and he refines his linguistic research, using several languages in a single poem, even French.

 

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AWARDS

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With the passing of time, the poet won a series of awards: in 1990 "Radiotre" broadcast the radio drama In Corpore antiquo taken from his Per specula aenigmatis, directed by Giuseppe Rocca; in 1998 he received the Viareggio-Répaci Prize section "Poesia" for his book Cumae; in 2001 the Jury of the Elsa Morante - Comune di Bacoli prize, chaired by Dacia Maraini, awarded him a special recognition for his work as a poet; in 2008 he received the Leopardi prize "La Ginestra". There was a great friendship between him and the artist Gugliemo Longobardo, a friendship that resulted in collaborations and expressions of reciprocal esteem. An example is the publication of the Longobardo catalog, that introduces works and poems by Sovente.

Michele Sovente unfortunately died at the age of 63, in March 2011. Ten years after his death, the Municipality of Monte di Procida, in his honour, organized an event that enhanced his memory and his life. To remember him, there is a mural located in Cappella, in Via Petrara, created by the artist Leticia Mandragora.