Poetry Expo 25
/ 19 February 2025
Amigdala
A Journey Through Memory and Control – A Multimedia Poetry Performance on Trauma, Love, and the Shadows of Capitalist Dreams
Poetry Expo 25
Amigdala, Riccardo Frolloni’s verse novel, serves as the foundation for this immersive performance that blends spoken word, electronic music, and visual art. The work reflects the harrowing journey of Frolloni’s parents to post-Soviet Romania, driven by ambition and shadowed by the malign influence of "Ideale," a figure embodying the seductive power of money and psychological manipulation.
Through a layered narrative, Frolloni captures themes of trauma, provincial life, the resilience of love amidst hardship, and the quiet tyranny of capitalist dreams. The performance, punctuated by live readings of poetry and a unique soundscape combining industrial, ambient, and electronic music, evokes both the emotional intensity and the stark realism of the original work. Archival video projections add an additional dimension, showcasing vintage footage that immerses the audience in the era and places the personal journey within a larger historical context.
The result is a contemplative experience that explores the delicate balance between hope and entrapment, weaving together family bonds and the broader social fabric. This multimedia event is not just a recitation but an evocative reflection on the power of memory, survival, and the stories that define us.
The project is part of the subthemes Re-imagining identity through poetry, Healing Narratives - Poetry, Mental Health and Collective Trauma.
Author
Riccardo Frolloni
Riccardo Frolloni (b. 1993, Macerata, Italy) grew up in a small village in the Sibillini Mountains. He holds a degree in Italian Studies, Linguistics, and European Literary Cultures from the University of Bologna. He has published the poetry collections Corpo striato (Industria & Letteratura, 2021; Winner of the PordenoneLegge Prize – Young Poets Award; Versante Ripido Prize) and Amigdala (Nino Aragno Editore, 2024). Together with artist Giulio Zanet, he released the art book Claustro (Edizioni Gei, 2021).
In 2022, he participated as a guest poet at the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Rosario (Argentina) and at the project L’italiano dei Poeti at Vilnius University (Lithuania). He translated into Italian On Not Losing My Father’s Ashes in the Flood by Canadian poet Richard Harrison ('roundmidnight edizioni, 2018) and Don't Practice Cannibalism, an anthology of works by Ron Padgett (Del Vecchio Editore, 2021). His Italian translation of Three Poems by British poet Hannah Sullivan is forthcoming.
He served as the director of the Contemporary Poetry Center at the University of Bologna and worked as a reader and assistant at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. He contributes to the music magazine Impatto Sonoro and is the president and founder of Lo Spazio Letterario, a cultural association based in Bologna. Currently, he teaches Italian and Latin at high schools.
