ROBERT MALINI

The poet Roberto Malini at the International Poetry Festival of Genoa to commemorate the Holocaust of the Roma People

Genoa, May 28, 2012.

PHOTO  
Roberto Malini reads "Poems of the Holocaust" on the Shoah Memorial Day 2012 in Vercelli

Taken by Steed Gamero

In Genoa, on the evening of June 8^th, 2012 (8 pm), at the Emanuele Luzzati Gardens, the poet and human rights defender Roberto Malini will read his poems dedicated to the condition of the Roma people in Italy.

The International Poetry Festival of Genoa is the biggest event dedicated to poetry in Italy.

The organizers have invited Malini on a symbolic date, the 74th anniversary of June 8^th, 1938, when the Italian Ministry of Interior sent a circular to all the prefectures.

The document foresaw the establishment of concentration camps for persons deemed dangerous to public order. On the same day the round-ups and deportations of Roma families began.

On June 8^th, 1930 the Porrajmos began in Italy.

Roberto Malini is the author - along with the American poet Paul Polansky - of the book of poetry "The Silence of the Violins" (published by Il Foglio, Piombino 2012, foreword by Ian Hancock), which recently won a Special Mention at the 2012 Literary Festival in Camaiore. The book is a collection of poems that relate true events: the tragedies that have hit the Roma people in Italy over recent years.

"I am proud to represent, through my poetry, the Roma people on this very significant day," says the poet. "Some Roma musicians will accompany my reading. I will read poems that speak of true heroes of our time: Alexandru and Mihai, elderly Porrajmos survivors, who are still being persecuted many years later in Italy.

Toma, the patriarch of the Roma of Pesaro, a city of evictions and persecution. Toma is currently being detained in prison.

We have applied for clemency to President Giorgio Napolitano, as the old man is innocent and seriously ill. A poem recounts the tragedy of Irina, the victim of a group of racist rapists.

Danciu is the protagonist of a gentle poem: he is a Roma artist who paints flowers in the makeshift shacks and under the bridges, to leave a trace of his passage.

I will be reading the story of Virgil, a child who never came into the world, because his young mother miscarried him during a terrible camp clearance, again in Pesaro.

The International Poetry Festival of Genoa is an ideal opportunity for this reading, because Genoa is a city of solidarity towards Roma and attentive to their ancient culture. This tolerance is a rare event in our country".

Roberto Malini is one of the founders of the international group of Roma artists, "Khetanes". He loves the interaction between the different art forms and has already worked with some of the best known Roma artists: Vadim Kolpakov (a musician who regularly collaborates with Madonna), Santino Spinelli, Jovica Jovic, the young painter Rebecca Covaciu and many others.