Paris Lit Up Heads to Italy
Paris Lit Up packed their notebooks, guitars, keyboards, paint brushes and spray cans and took off for a week in April to tour northern Italy. A group of musicians, writers and visual artists from across the world ventured on a journey of sharing their poetry, prose, music and paintings with Italian audiences. Visiting Florence, Bologna, Venice, Padova and Trieste, PLU charted their way north with always a poem or a tune at hand. I was privileged to be invited to take part of PLU's Grand Tour Italy and the following is a modest attempt at capturing in words a daydream of an experience:
February, Thursday, Belleville: I linger around after PLU open mic as usual. Jason speaks about an upcoming grand tour of Italy. I try to suppress my abundant childlike fascination at the idea of a group of artists touring Italy. He mentions that I could take part. I laugh it off. No, really, me? Yes. Oh. I guess I have to check with my university.
Late March: I receive a letter from Jason. "Here's the official document for the university to validate your absences during the trip." I secretly hope the university will not allow it. My fragile self-esteem and persistent self doubt fear the repercussions of being called a "featured poet." Who? Me?
Image Credit: Facebook/Johnny Bigoudis
On April 13, our Easy Jet flight lands directly in the heart of Florence. Our first show is in a squat house. The room slowly fills, as students exchange cigarettes and thoughts outside the venue. By the time the show begins, PLU's ten artists exude an energy of excitement, even though many of them are yet to be well acquainted with one another. Sella, a musician, singer and song-writer from San Francisco opens the show with a haunting bluesy tune. The performance flows marvelously, despite our constant reminders that Florence is our "trial run."
Image Credit: Facebook/Paris Lit Up
The next morning, the bus takes us straight to Bologna and we spend the afternoon lingering in one of Bologna's luscious parks. Briefly before the show, we walk to the city's center, the University of Bologna. "This is exactly how I dreamed a university would be as a child." I confess to Sella. I marvel at the cobblestone streets and the colorful buildings featuring walls painted with political messages: "If you dream alone, it remains a dream. If we dream together, it becomes a reality." I am performing in the streets of the oldest university in the world, I remind myself as we make our way to the closed off section of the university where our performance will take place. I hum Andrea's song as I walk and smile at the humor and wit captured in such an addictive tune. almost two hundred people fill the streets for the open mic session, our performance, and the DJ set of one of our PLU crew, Sven Hansen Love. The evening ends with Jason's friends hosting us at their homes. Ed, a writer from England, shares some Latin poetry with our new-found Bolognian friends. For the night, we are part of Bologna and we spend our evening with its students.
Image Credit: Facebook/Johnny Bigoudis
"Visiting Venice alone is a crime," I wrote when I strolled through winter-ridden Venezia last September. This time, Venice blooms in its floral spring colors. We walk through its narrow alleys, crossing bridges, memorizing fountains to remember our way home in a city whose streets look all too similar to to the foreign eye. We spend the afternoon in a beautiful house, lounging around while I relish being around so many artists. As we exchange stories, I marvel at Shannon's courage and lucid writing. "One day, you too will be able to tell your story," she says to me as we make our way out of the house. Venice's venue is smaller and both the crowd and PLU members resonate with the flow of the night. "Our next performance will be stellar," I think as both the evening and our bonds ease into intimacy. Rose and I marvel at the full moon while we make our way back, I ache to tell her how beautiful her Spanish poetry is.
Image Credit: Facebook/ Paris Lit Up
Through Venice's canals, around its corners, and across its bridges we make our way to the central train station. The train to Padova is only a 40 minute ride. It's an important day in Padova; Jason reminds us that our performance will be coupled with the Italian Poetry Emancipation Movement of MEP. We witness live street performance in several languages as we make our way through the city with a wooden stool that we use as a transportable stage and guitars. The Padovian people reciprocate our excitement and enthusiastically applaud our efforts. The evening is one of uncharted territories, as our performance is accompanied with Jazz musicians who play alongside our readings. "This isn't our best work yet," Sella reminds me as she urges me to stay for the final show. "Just when you think it can't get any better, it does," she says as she recounts our trip so far, in a shared genuine wonder that convinces me to stay.
Image Credit: Associazione Voyager
We spend the next few days on a well earned little holiday. A day in Padova, another in Venice and finally one in Trieste. I feel we have done our experience justice, when we reached the seaside city bordering the Slovenian borders. Trieste is a luscious city of sea and mountains, trees and cobblestone streets. We joke about returning to live in Trieste, or possibly not leaving back to Paris. Some argue that they would return to Venice, others to Florence, some to Padova and finally some to Bologna. It wasn't the travel, the fatigue or the fast pace of our journey that I found difficult, but the overwhelming flavor-explosions of bite sized experiences that we had in each city. Each city urged us to stay, each city proved that Italy could offer more beauty, even when you think you had seen it all.
Image Credit: Facebook/Johnny Bigoudis
Our last performance in Padova was doused in a quiet sadness. Joe's full moon leaked its black ink with a beautiful premature melancholy. How do we leave? Stella asks me, how can we just return to Paris and our lives? The answer, it proves, was as simple as getting on a plane. The answer it proves was as difficult as continuing to stumble over your words, a month later, when trying to respond to the question of "How was Italy?"
