Daniele Serafini

Born in Emilia-Romagna in 1952, graduated from the University of Bologna in Literature and Philosophy, is the son of an Italian military pilot between the two wars. He’s the head of the Museum and Gallery Services in the town of Lugo, near Bologna, and the Curator of the Francesco Baracca Museum of Aviation. He has lived two years between UK, Wales and Ireland, and learned French and German at the Universities of Caen (France), Vienna (Austria) and Heidelberg (Germany). He is a poet, translator and novelist and has written seven collections of poems published by Mobydick, Faenza and L’Arcolaio, Forlì: Paesaggio Celtico, (1993); Luce di confine, (1994); Eterno chiama il mare, (1997), which received an honourable mention at the International Prize “Eugenio Montale”; Dopo l’amore, (2004); Quando eravamo re (2012), shorlisted both for the “Guido Gozzano” and the “Città di Marineo” Prizes; Polvere di stelle (2016), Tra le radici e l’altrove (2016); the novel Café Hàwelka (1995) and the short story “Il Maggiore Harris” (1996). Former editor of two poetry magazines (“Origini” and “Tratti”), his poems have been translated and published in several countries. He has translated poems from the British poet Harry Guest, the Irish poets Theo Dorgan, Séan Dunne, Fred Johnston, Gabriel Rosenstock, William Wall, from the French poet Bruno Cany and the Flamish poet Willem M. Roggeman. In April 2019 he read at the Cork World Book Fest and in Skibbereen. According to some critics, Serafini’s poetry reveals the unrest of an “exiled voice” struggled between the research of roots, of a personal Heimat, and the quest of an “elsewhere”. Focusing on some major archetypes such as life and death, beginning and end, he shows a position which is regarded as being critical of modernity and his myths. He has been called “a symbolist and an impressionist of the word” for the recurring evocation and transfiguration of nature in his work, but also a lyric poet both for his language and issues rich in inner contents. where he was also Curator of the Francesco Baracca Museum of Aviation. His father was an Italian military aviator between the wars – he’ll be reading some poems on that subject on 30th April. Daniele has written six collections of poems published by Mobydick, Faenza and L’Arcolaio, Forlì: Paesaggio Celtico; Luce di confine; Eterno chiama il mare, which was shortlisted for the International Eugenio Montale Prize; Dopo l’amore; Quando eravamo re; and his collected poems Tra le radici e l’altrove. He has written one novel, Café Hàwelka.