The poems in Lidia Chiarelli s impressive debut collection, Immagine & Poesia, remind us that each human being is a universe complete with suns and moons, eclipses, tidal pulls, and dry deserts and art is the telescope that allows us to see into other universes. As Emily Dickinson wrote, forever is composed of nows, and these intimate, carefully examined and faithfully rendered verses convey a portrait-like quality, presenting portraits of a moment. These are Impressionist paintings of poems acutely observed, vividly and delicately rendered celebrations of the moments of beauty that surround and permeate us. Physical sensations combine with emotion and reflection to imbue each work with multiple layers of meaning. The imagery is varyingly dramatic, precise, concrete, cosmopolitan or bucolic, expressing a sense of place and atmosphere. Each poem, each line is meticulously constructed and polished, and each is a work of art that imparts sensations to and summons responses from the reader. Beyond the descriptive, there is an evocation of wonder, loss, exhilaration, tenderness, fear all those things that make the human experience familiar to all of us. The more personal, the more universal. Sometimes, as in all our experiences, there are darker passages, as in Garden in May The tired petals on the stones of the path will form the drawing of this uncertain time that the wind will continue to break down in a ruthless game. It will be the time when even the swallows (in rapid elliptic flights in the pearl sky) come and play again unaware of their fate But there is also whimsy, as in Tiffany wonder, in Manhattan and Niagara, and surprising turnabouts, as when, in Winter Concert, after . . . Dazzling the lights of the shop-windows give way, and the city oddly empty wraps us up in a damp embrace. How different would that city and that moment be, if the embrace were cold or warm, or anything other than damp? But on the whole, these are joyous works, expressing optimism and love of life, as in The Rest of the Boats, Unplanned destinations stood out in front of us when strong and safe we left to challenge the wind. Through these pages, the poet s mind wanders freely as the wind, reaching unplanned destinations, touching all aspects of life, and that which can scarcely be contained by sails can only be truly captured in poetry and art. This collection is organized into six sections, offering reflections on Images and Poetry, childhood, the seasons, the rhythm of life, travel, and ending with a special poem dedicated to Lidia s friend and fellow poet, Aeronwy Thomas. Each poem is presented alongside a work of art, created or selected by the artist for it. Lidia Chiarelli has devoted much of her time to founding and furthering the artistic and literary movement, Immagine&Poesia, which brings together for collaboration, publication and exhibition the works of poets and artists from all over the world. Her sense that art and poetry motivate one another is deeply rooted and actively lived her husband, Gianpiero Actis is an accomplished painter. The success of this idea can be witnessed in the absolute harmony of the poems in the collection and the accompanying works of art by painter, Gianpiero Actis, photographer, Alessandro Actis, photographer Adel Gorgy, painter Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, painter Marsha Solomon, and painter Gopakumar. Each of these pairings is a conscious and deliberate collaborative effort; works inspired and informed by each other or chosen expressly for each other. The artworks are not to be understood as illustrations for the poems, nor are the poems captions for the pictures. They are compound artworks composed of, as the movement states, images and poetry. The poems in Images and Poetry stand securely on their own. --from the Preface by Mary Gorgy

Lidia Chiarelli was born and raised in Turin, in northern Italy, where she studied and graduated in English Language and Literature at the University of Torino. For several years, she devoted herself to teaching English in secondary schools, and included creative expression courses in her teaching methods. She organized a unique mail art exhibition at Giuseppe Perotti School (Torino, 1990), which turned out to be an opportunity to become acquainted with many artists, especially with Sarah Jackson, a digital artist from Halifax, Canada. Her long distance collaboration with the Canadian artist, Jackson, and with British writer Aeronwy Thomas, (the daughter of Dylan Thomas), led her to found, with four other members, the artistic literary Movement Immagine & Poesia, which was officially presented at Alfa Teatro of Torino on Novembre 9, 2007. After visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010, Lidia was inspired to create installations similar to Yoko Ono s Wish Tree, but hanging not only wishes, but poems and original works of art on cards on the trees. Lidia Chiarelli s Poetry&Art Trees thus began to appear in different exhibitions in Piedmont and abroad. Lidia s passion for creative writing has motivated her to write poetry, and she became an award-winning poet in 2011 and 2012 : Premio Il Meleto di Guido Gozzano, Agliè 2011 (Segnalazione di Merito) and 2012 (Terzo Premio poesia inedita). In June 2011 she was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from The First International Poetry Festival of Swansea (U.K.) for her broadside poetry and art contribution. Her writing has been translated into English, French and Romanian (Dr. Olimpia Jacob) and published in Poetry Reviews and on web-sites in Italy, Great Britain, in the U.S.A. and in Romania.