Throughout her life, Amelia Rosselli often thought aloud. Not to explain—she wasn’t interested in that—but to search, in that low and slightly dragging voice, for something that could hold language and thought together. She did it in three languages, as if one were not enough. One evening in the 1980s, during an informal gathering, she spoke about meter, rhythm, and poetry to a small group. That conversation, never intended for publication, has now become a book.
Delirious Verse. A Talk on Metrical Spaces will be presented on May 1st at 6 p.m., at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. Published by The Last Books in Spring 2025, the volume is edited and translated by Andrea di Serego Alighieri and Phil Baber, with contributions from Jennifer Scappettone, who also offers a new English translation of Rosselli’s essay Metrical Spaces. The three translators will discuss the project with Isabella Livorni (NYU).
Delirious Verse is a transcription of that discussion, rendered in English while preserving its loose, sometimes uncertain structure, full of repetition, digressions, and interruptions. It’s neither didactic nor autobiographical. Rosselli reads, pauses, reasons. She speaks of writing as a space one enters, not always to remain.
The book does not aim to reconstruct a coherent theory or provide a literary portrait. Instead, it offers a moment—its tensions, openings, and the voice that shifts in and out of the written text. For readers familiar with Rosselli, it’s a rare document. For those encountering her for the first time, it’s as good an entry point as any. The event will be held in English. Admission is free.
