Aldo Palazzeschi

Aldo Palazzeschi

The Incendiary. With the Report on the Futurist Victory of Trieste.
Milan, Futurist Editions of Poetry, 1910.

18.5 cm; 292 pp.; cardboard binding with cloth spine and gold lettering.

Interesting and rare edition of one of the most important texts of futurist literature, with four final pages of advertising for the futurist editions of "Poetry" at the end of the volume; the work opens with the report on the victory of futurism in Trieste, practically a preface, written by F. T. Marinetti, followed by the fanfares of the press. Futurism and the futurists defended by: Silvio Benco, Elda Gianelli, A. Bellotti, P. Arcari, A. Scocchi, V. Cuttin. A. Datta, A. Giacomelli, A. Tamaini, etc.;
and also the meanings of futurism, according to Paolo Arcari; futurism and satire, written by Giulio Piazza in the "Piccolo" (of Trieste); "The Incendiary is dedicated to F.T. Marinetti 'soul of our flame'";

From The Incendiary: "I too, you know, am an incendiary / A poor incendiary who cannot burn / And I am like you in prison. / I am a poet who pays homage to you,/ as a poor failed incendiary, / Incendiary of poetry. / Every verse I write is a fire."

The most futurist among Palazzeschi's poetry collections is The Incendiary, published in Milan with the types of the futurist editions of Poetry and with a preface by Filippo T. Marinetti. Here, alongside linguistic experimentalism and the dissolution of the lyrical subject, the topos of the poet as acrobat predominates. The co-optation into the futurist movement takes to extreme consequences the entertainment of verbal play, the search for non-sense. Poetry becomes lighter, empties itself, becomes light, like the "man of smoke", becomes a chant and/or nursery rhyme, the word becomes random, or is reduced to sequences of advertisements, of advertising slogans.