Squeaks is the latest poetic collection by writer Roberto Gaudioso, conceived as a linguistic and sound journey. It is an adventure, a journey that neglects no place: Naples, i Phlegraean Fields, the dramatic massacres of shipwrecked people. Find out the itinerary and interview with the author!

Hi Roberto! Can you tell us how you chose the title of your latest book?

"It is a combination of several factors that sum up not only my collection, but also my way of writing. First of all, the connection with singing: mice can sing, there is even a Kafka story about it, 'Josephine the Singer and the Mouse People.' Then mice are something that moves on the ground, in lived, dirty places, markets, this horizontal movement that in Squeaky involves both suburbs and distant geographies.

However, an important element is the fact that we cannot hear the mice singing, this element made me think about the multilingualism of my poems, if you think about it the combination of languages I use sometimes can make you think about this incommunicability, the fact that this singing cannot be read. I know I'm taking a risk, but I wouldn't know any other way. That's why I opened a youtube channel Where I read both my own poems and those I translate from Swahili."

For those who don't know him, Roberto Gaudioso is a poet, researcher, and editor of international journals who boasts several publications: in 2008 dates Contigue Rooms, his literary debut. From the projects developed with different visual artists came: two complementary volumes in 2014, the art booklet in 2012, DNA, and the workbook, from 2016, derived from the project with Mariangela Levita.

The writer, in short, showed early on a flair for performance and experimentalism, combining the intensity of polymorphous words with painting, photography and sometimes even theater.

Would you comment to us on the difference between the two types of experiences: the projects developed together with contemporary artists and Squittii's "solitary," but no less fertile, writing?

"The difference is significant, but not irreconcilable. I like to collaborate with other artists, mostly I have worked with figurative artists, but I have also collaborated sporadically (unfortunately) with a musician. By working with other artists, our path is combined with another's, a project is made, I love to write by being inspired by someone else's work. This is not to say that it is only the writing that follows the artwork. Every collaboration is different.

For example, in the parallel booklets I made with Emanuele Gregolin, we experimented with a parallel path, in Precession writing followed his work, while in Faults the opposite happened; obviously there were points of union in both works, represented especially by Gregolin's work on my manuscripts.

The work, however, which has been a rather long common path of dialogues and continuous design and redesign of the work, has been through you with Mariangela Levita. With Mariangela, the path became one, for a year we dialogued without asking where we would land, in 2016 our workbook came out and we organized a site specific one in an abandoned apartment in the center of Naples. From there came the collaboration with the director Ivan Specchio, who did not make a documentary, but joined our research and another one came out art product.

Currently with Mariangela we are completing our second stage: cross the crossed. There are different ways of working, but each artist, I am sure including future ones (right now I am working with Prisco De Vivo) has marked my writing. Cooperating is also risky and tiring, there can be different misunderstandings but working together for me is a happy way of working, it brings me joy, and then it is an antidote to egocentrism and the claim of originality and originality.

However, I consider solitary work necessary and a prerequisite to everything. My writing, for example, is related to different places, however, only to places where I have been alone for a long time. Solitude helps me to poetically restore a place, to have a dialogue with it, to experience it; with poetry it is the same."

Even from the first lines of the recent sylloge (collection of writings) a volcanic lexicon seems to allude to the Phlegrean territory, to Pozzuoli, at Lake Avernus, a Miseno, but the author resolutely broadens his perspective. He moves toward the green island, Ischia, clearly mentioned in a Romantic composition, with lampare for background. Then he moves to the city crossroads of Piazzetta Montesanto, most recognizable in Clusters of men spilled out of stations, with the crowds gushing from the trains, the Old Pellegrini, the Pignasecca market and its humanity.

After an intense passage in Spain, with a rhapsodic and lively tone, we reach Africa, a continent recounted without mythologizing, where dances are marked by the rumbling of drums, teenagers enlist, there is a lack of water and light, where roadblocks are encountered, but above all a place of culture, so much so that to the Tanzanian poet Kezilahabi, Roberto Gaudioso dedicates a poem in which he calls him his teacher. In this journey, which is profound source of enrichment, borders are but "a sheet of water" and "difference happens like a scream in the sea of "equality"(cit.).

Would you tell us more about the composition set in Montesanto?

"It is the composition that I most of all wrote on the spur of the moment of inspiration. Of course I made a few corrections later, but few. I was coming out of the subway following the flow of people, arriving in Piazza Montesanto, our flow was joined by the Cumana and Circumflegrea, I stopped there, looking at the Pignasecca and wrote."

The stops on the itinerary: Lake Avernus

In the poem to the idea of PRNTT the author refers to the Lake Avernus. Apparently the name, Greek for "birdless," was due to the gaseous fumes that prevented its passage. The tour around the crater lake, on whose shores the Temple of Apollo, is ideal for those who enjoy walking outdoors, sportsmen or picnicking. Tennis shoes and, in summer, mosquito spray are recommended.

The forest of Zaro on Ischia

In the romantic composition - do you remember the fireflies?, Gaudioso evokes the green landscapes of the Zaro forest. Once you reach the island (by ferry or hydrofoil, from Calata Porta di Massa, Molo Beverello, Mergellina or the port of Pozzuoli), in the Mediterranean scrubland area, located between Forio and Lacco Ameno, you can come via bus (from Ischia Porto or by Casamicciola, in the direction of Forio).

The Pignasecca market

In "clusters of men spilling out of stations," one can clearly see Montesanto Square, which can be reached by metro line 1, but also from the Vomero district by the funicular of the same name.

Here, every day until 8 p.m., they sell everything from groceries and clothing to underwear, street food and typical products. This is one of the most characteristic areas of Naples, whose name dates back to the 1500s, when the place proliferated with vegetable gardens.

When it was built via Toledo, all vegetation was cut down and only one pine tree, in Neapolitan "pine cone," survived. Because many magpies with a habit of robbing passersby nested on the one tree, an archbishop of the time issued an excommunication to the birds. Nailing the bubble to the trunk, "the pine cone" thus became dry.