Giovanna Frene on Poetry, History, and Her Strega Prize Finalist 'Eredità ed Estinzione'

Giovanna Frene (Asolo, 1968), poet and scholar discovered by Andrea Zanzotto, is a finalist for the 2024 Premio Strega Poesia with her collection 'Eredità ed Estinzione' (Donzelli, 2024). In an interview, she discusses the book's engagement with the landscape of Northern Italy, the memory of World War I, and the ruins of empires from Rome to Byzantium. The scientific committee praised the work for its horizontal breadth and vertical depth, confronting grand themes. Frene cites the influence of Giambattista Vico's cyclical view of history and describes the current empire as a porous, space-time entity called 'Occident.' She explains her use of dialect in the 'Canzoni all'Italia' section, drawing on the testimony of her grandfather Francesco and fellow villager Giuseppe Bof, a semi-literate soldier. Frene notes that her poetry employs sarcasm (à la Kraus) rather than irony, creating friction with formal perfection. She attributes the work's three-dimensionality to her background in visual arts and music. Writing, she says, became her primary art because language subsumes other forms. The interview is part of a series on the Strega Poesia finalists.