Meeting with Jorie Graham (joining online) and presentation of the book 2040 (Crocetti Editore, 2025)

On December 10, join us for an online meeting with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham, and for the presentation of the Italian edition of her book, 2040 (Crocetti, 2025). Graham will join us from the United States to discuss her work and the role of poetry in the present day. The conversation will be in Italian, which is the author’s first language as she grew up in Rome and lived there until she was eighteen.

The title of this fifteenth poetry collection by Graham, widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary poets, alludes to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which aimed to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5°C and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040. This book is part of a project that Graham began almost twenty years ago, incorporating ecological and scientific themes into her poetry, thus changing her perspective on what it means to be human in our times. Her poems raise questions about the future of our planet's species while reflecting on important existential and historical issues through opposing categories: the mind and the world, the spirit and the body, the real and the metaphysical, birth and death. In her writing, she denounces historical events such as ecocide, global warming, the virtualization of reality, mass migration, drought, famine and war, and the risk of losing the ability to remember.  In her view, memory and imagination are essential elements on which the salvation of our civilization depends. First published in English in 2023, the book is now available in Italian, translated by Antonella Francini for Crocetti Edizioni/Feltrinelli.

On December 10, Graham will engage in a conversation with the students of the University of Bologna, the Spazio Letterario community, and anyone interested in exploring contemporary issues through poetic expression.

Participants in the event include: Jorie Graham, Antonella Francini, Elena Lamberti, Mattia Arioli and Riccardo Frolloni.