Solipsism

Hermetic poem

Photo by Craig Philbrick on Unsplash

Now it is yesterday
here with my dog
she walks back and forth
together inside.

Now it is tomorrow
here with my dog
not looking outside.

Hermetic poetry was an Italian modern literary movement born between the two world wars years, the 1920s and 1930s, deriving from Futurism and Symbolism. Main features were: reduction to essentials, abolition of punctuation, synthetic compositions. Poems can result in short dense pieces of only two or three lines.

The hermetic poet has a dispirited vision of life and no illusions. Words are only evocative: they lose their communicative function, keeping aside from politics and beliefs, definitely, dismissing their teaching role. Therefore, this poetry expressed itself through intimate moods, interior thinking, and meditation. The characteristic tone is disheartened and pensive.

Central to this poetry is the modern man, leaving the idealism of the Romantic period and, instead, experiencing helplessness and desperate loneliness for his loss of values, myths, beliefs, and certainties. The hermetic poet has lost every point of reference.

Giuseppe Ungaretti, one of the greatest Italian poets, is considered the founder of…