Poesia Mapping

The project

The Poesia Mapping platform aims to create a living, navigable archive of contemporary Italian poetry. Each poem is associated with a significant place and enriched with multimedia content, offering a bridge between text and territory. The project is a collaboration between Sciamlab, the Italian Cultural Institute, and selected poets, creating an ecosystem in which poetry can be experienced in space.

Innovation and cultural enhancement

The innovative heart of the project lies in its ability to use semantic and geographic technologies to breathe new life into poetic language. Through a simple but evocative interface, users can explore relationships between places, themes, and authors, opening up new paths of reading and understanding.

User experience serving culture

The platform interface has been designed to accompany visitors on an intuitive and personal journey through the map of poetry. Dynamic visualizations, thematic filters, and geolocation guide users as they explore literary heritage, stimulating curiosity and engagement.

On an Imaginary Map of Italian Poetry. The Parameters.

1. Assertiveness —
Does the poet consciously convey a worldview in their poetry? Do they “say” something? Do they have “something” to say? Or do they tend to disappear into language, into its system, asymptotically into the world, or into something else?


   
   
2. Performance —
Does the poet consider the centrality of the text to be complete, or do they use the body and voice in relation to the text, and to what extent? Are they, or are they considered to be performative? Throughout their entire career, or only in certain phases of it? And is this link between text and voice/body actually structural, or is it added to some extent?

   
   
3. I —
Does the poet “say I”? Is there a subject speaking to us? Is this subject often/always lyrical, or does it also take other forms? Is the incidence of this subject increasing? How does this parameter relate to the parameter of assertiveness?
   
   
4. World —
Does the outside world exist for this poet? To what extent does it enter the text? Violently, subtly? Are we in a theater of the mind, in a house-body, or is there room for something out there? Nature, history? And how does this parameter relate to the parameter of the self?


   
   
5. Experimentation —
Does this poet also express himself/herself through innovation in form, understood in a broad sense, and without necessarily being linked to the avant-garde/neo-avant-garde tradition? Or does he/she rather live in a continuity, however understood, of forms and languages from the past and present?

   
   
6. Knowledge —
Does the poet make his/her poetry, or believe he/she makes it, a tool for new knowledge? Or does he/she move within a shared and known world? How much exploration is there? Are we moving away from a port? Or are we returning to it? And the possibility of knowledge, therefore, if it exists, at what price?

   
   
7. Emotionality —
Is there a color, and a human warmth, or what the writer considers to be such, in this poet? Is there a presence, for the writer and in what they write, of feelings and affections? And to what extent is it palpable and does it matter? Does this poetry also intend to touch the reader or speak only to the mind or intellect? Does the universe tend to warm up or freeze, at least while we are reading?

An open and collaborative digital heritage

Poesia Mapping is designed as an evolving project. Thanks to its modular architecture and integrated editing tools, the platform can be expanded with new content and actively involve communities, schools, and cultural institutions. A map that grows, just as poetry grows.