States of Mind and Love

All together, these poems enact – sometimes ironically – forms of transition. As ‘departures’, they imply regeneration. The idea of a journey into different ‘states of mind’ becomes itself a metaphor for the poet’s experience of self-awareness. Certainly, Riccobono’s voice, which uses English as a foreign language, offers a counter-narrative to the long tradition of how a woman’s life as mother, lover and intellectual is considered, making readers aware that, although life has boundaries, there is always some further work to be done, action to be attempted to (re)gain autonomy. Always witty and emotionally subtle, Riccobono’s style embraces the many ways imagination can move ahead to prevent the artist’s practical life to be carried along with unwanted circumstances. Travelling, dancing and writing symbolize her vital need to continue her life journey optimistically, allowing her talent to recharge itself and move each time to new ‘states of mind’. If setting one’s mind to writing poetry is a departure from that existential enclosure that prevents the free expression of one’s true feelings, then the way this book’s four sections flow into each other perfectly illustrate how Rossella Riccobono has imagined her poetry, attuning it to the kind of discourse that Julia Kristeva has called a ‘transference of love’.