Futurism in Italian Verbo-Visual Poetry after the Second World War

This essay explores the ever-changing panorama of verbo-visual poetry after the Second World War in Italy, tracing back its manifold, divergent and articulated forms – spanning Concrete, Visual, Symbiotic or Epistaltic Poetry – to Futurist theories and practices. By reconstructing the complicated political and cultural debate that delayed a proper assessment of Marinetti’s movement – due to its ambiguous association with Fascism in the 1920s to 40s – and following the few critical voices in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century (Masnata, Barilli, Ballerini) that fostered an essential scholarly change of course, I aim to contextualize the debt of Italian poetic neo-avant-garde(s) to Futurism. Showing how Italy was at the forefront of an international artistic turmoil that sought to affect a visual and material transformation of the poetic experience, the analysis focusses on the creative and theoretical works of a number of poets and artists, who played a significant rôle in the critical revision and practical prosecution of Futurism from the mid-1960s onwards and promoted the rediscovery and further development of paroliberismo: namely, Carlo Belloli (1922–2003), Arrigo Lora Totino (1928–2016), Maurizio Nannucci (1939‐), Mimmo Rotella (1918–2006), Lamberto Pignotti (1926‐), Stelio Maria Martini (1934–2016) and Paolo Albani (1946‐). Examining the unique physical and formal characteristics of their outcomes in the framework of the Italian cultural climate of the time, all the while highlighting their instances of continuity with the earlier Italian avant-garde, the ultimate aim of the essay is to re-evaluate a series of little-studied, albeit fundamental experiences for a complete and systematic reclaiming of a (Neo)Futurist aesthetics.