Italian Sojourn
An unexpected change to his writing subsequently occurred after two trips to Italy late in his life. In 1987 he first visited Venice and then, 6 years later, he also travelled to Florence. This seemed to prompt a blaze of much more colourful verse, integrating the personal drama of his own life with the sweep of Italian faith, culture, landscape and history. In ‘Heretic in Florence’ he recounted the stench of the dry river Arno and its cure, portraying it as a metaphor for his own release from merely barren art.
Read more about this topic: Jack Clemo
Famous quotes containing the words italian and/or sojourn:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“I must sojourn once to the ballot-box before I die. I hear the ballot-box is a beautiful glass globe, so you can see all the votes as they go in. Now, the first time I vote I’ll see if the woman’s vote looks any different from the rest—if it makes any stir or commotion. If it don’t inside, it need not outside.”
—Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–1883)