When do you become an artist? (meant as a preface) There was a time when artists were considered like craftsmen. They were good at expressing a certain tradition of some aesthetic appeal, you would call on them to decorate your houses and churches and as far as the poets are concerned, to write the glory of some political establishment or illustrious person. Everything else was the artist exercising and honing their craft. Nowadays we are of course used to the artist expressing their individual viewpoint and many times the skill developed is that of observation or feeling rather than mastering any particular medium or technique. The only way to know a "real artist" today is by talking to them, to probe the depth and intensity of their thoughts, the strength of their conviction, the importance they ascribe to the role they take up in society and their work. I have been wondering about when and how this development happens for decades but never got any closer to understanding until I saw it happen right next to me, during the last 3 years roughly spanned by the poetry present in this book. A. is a prolific creator. Once something catches her interest, she'll explore it tirelessly and quickly, ideas flowing limitlessly, every waking hour and many that should be granted to sleep, dedicated to the pursuit of perfectly giving shape to what her imagination comes up with. Often this is accompanied by insecurity and self doubt, the world pressuring to pursue more reasonable activities, make money, behave responsibly and even - still - act more like an adult woman and all of these factors weigh on the creative brilliance until disappointment, doubt and even the desire to destroy her own work kick in. These last three years, A. gave herself entirely to the creation and collection of poetry and photography which very often acts as the materia prima for her words and so it is in poetry that she documented the longest and most intense creative cycle from uninhibited creation to self doubt, friction with the expectations pushed on her by the world and back again. Words as a means of describing and reinterpreting existence have always been a staple in our home like salt or sugar. Words are played with, altered, shaped into jokes or allusions, philosophized with, invented, combined across the boundaries of different languages, rhymed, metered, sewn like seeds, sprayed like aerosols. Breathed into the world to play, inhaled to change, transported to new minds and places. In the past however, there has always been a hint of artifice in both of our creations; of book learning or art pour l'art, expression for expression's sake. That has changed completely. The present collection is chronological and roughly divided into three groups: love, suffering and contemplation-reconciliation. The first poems are descriptions of newly found feelings, the joy of finally being not judged but understood, of high hopes and new horizons opening up. They correspond to a time were we both, having lived together for 12 years, had decided to include other people into our lives because we were stuck in our ways, isolated and somewhat hopeless. Life had become routine, work dull and without a future, Covid emphasizing just how lonely you can get in your own mind. New people appeared, love too happened and A. was reawakened, her creativity on fire like never before, her belief in her own work the strongest it has ever been. Poems like "Dream of the Flying Shrimp" or "Morning Croissant" are subtly erotic and hopeful, always drawn from real life observations.  “Fire in a Trashcan” is a memory from when we stayed in Paris with a friend couple for whom A. was organizing an art exhibition. The city was full of trash because the disposal services were on strike, but the sense of chaos didn't keep us from bringing coffee and croissants every morning to our Airbnb and proudly taking ownership of this legendary city to share some art with the world. The "Sunflower" became a symbol for struggle and pain but also a cosmic resilience much like in the paintings by Anselm Kiefer, for which A. has developed deep appreciation, making it into one of the cornerstones of her visual imagination. "The Vampire" is openly sexual but at the same time a reference to romantic artists such as Munch, Kipling and Baudelaire,. Other poems are innocently funny as in "Soft Potato". Another set is profoundly romantic, letting the mind feel the immensity of a loving heart attuned to the universe: "Stardust", "Solar System", "Milky Way". *S'illumina d'immenso* I'm tempted to say with the great Italian poet, Giuseppe Ungaretti. These verses are in turn witty, inventive, provocative. But life doesn't always go as planned and when our relationship began showing signs of wear and tear, the newfound love was not reciprocated, her work environment in a regional museum turned toxic and she felt herself increasingly alienated from her parents, the poems of the second category came to be. I didn't notice at first, despite living together for over a decade, just how bad A. was feeling, why she suddenly bought books by Bukowski or Sylvia Plath, what she was trying to express in the dozens of deleted Whatsapp or Instagram messages, when I was absent, but I do know that in this time an artist was born, ultimately to be rising out of her own ashes like the phoenix. Titles like "Death and the Maiden", "Daughter" and "Breakdown" speak for themselves. "Dragon" is a painfully honest description of the poet's inner struggle between the high expectations she pushes on herself and the exhaustion and isolation brought about by the fact that noone wants to or can follow along. The hope that some passionate soul comes along, some friendship turns into an unsinkable vessel to explore the stars, the beauty she sees when closing her eyes manifests itself in the real world becoming less and less believable until the dragon entrenches herself alone in a circle of flames. "Bubbles" is especially dear to me because I know where this image comes from. "Bubbles are a vanitas in art history", she would explain, and while organizing yet another splendid exhibition for a friend, she would buy a flask of soap bubbles next to some nails and thread to hang paintings with. Happy to show her friend that so many things are possible with bubbles, "you can even use them to splatter paint on a canvas, look!", she grew disappointed because nobody that mattered shared her enthusiasm and the dragon took a long breath to incinerate  another swath of her serenity. Most of these poems I cannot stand to read. It would be impressive to see an unknown artist express their despair so masterfully but if you know them you have to be careful not to let their work tear open a hole in the thin veil of meaning you put over existence, lest you stare directly into the cold infinite void. I am by nature a more gentle observer, my inner life can be melancholic but is generally playfully curious and empathetic. So I really started to realize the poetic strength on display when "Bukowski" and the following verses came around. In February 2024 A. took me with her on a trip to London. We had a good time and among other things ended up at the Daunt bookstore in Marylebone. I bought books for a friend I had recently fallen in love with, A. bought herself a collection of Bukowski's poems following a suggestion by her friend who had also become all too dear to her. Bukowski's harsh, brutal, cynical style immediately clicked with A. and that book would accompany her everywhere from now on, on vacation, to bed, while bathing, laughing and above all while crying. When I heard a video of Bukowski reading his own verses I understood the way out A. had found for herself through a sharp depiction of misery and misfortune, cynicism turned careful empathy and reconciliation with the world by sensing innate beauty in the small and the neglected. Sometimes, A. would describe her own dreams: in "Traffic Lights" a girl waiting for her lover on one side of the street might be killed while trying to cross the street to get to him, or she might not. Other times, she would recognize people on the street as in "An old man with a cigar", who often stands at a shop close to where we live, his only company the cigar he puts on the trashbin to free his hands. She would go several times a week to the annual autumn fun fair, take hundreds of pictures - themselves full of surprising discoveries and empathy - and work some of them into poems. Three, five, seven a day, all of them done on the first pass! "Hook-a-duck", "The old man and the Pink Balloon", "The old Blue Jeans Gang". Imagine Doisneau or Cartier-Besson but instead of just people, animals and inanimate objects become the carriers of tenderness, social criticism and sometimes a shattering depiction of personal loss: a child separated from its toy in "Lost and Found" , a symbol of a broken friendship in "A broken Walnut", a carelessly thrown away "Pink Paper Plane". Towards the end, the poems become more belligerent, sarcastic and brutally honest. The poet had just survived the stare of death, came back from the brink of disillusion and abandonment, recognized all the shackles that had held her back to lose her fear of judgement and even rediscover the joy of laughter. "Balloon Blowing" and "Banana Eaters" target the petrified and commodified art world, "Leviathan" lashes out at a disappointing and soul crushing job, "Cold Sweat", "A Cherry Clafoutis", "Depersonalisation" or “Double Trouble” talk about her childhood and psychological suffering. In "Glossolalia" she proudly shares her own language, that I recognize because she has been using it from time to time ever since I met her and finally in "Blue Monday", A. allows herself to take herself lightly again. "When do you become an artist?" is a question without a definitive answer. Somewhere between the habit of play, intense pain and disappointment, the decision to not give up and carry on searching for meaning and the wish to go out and touch the world, to feel in touch with the whole human spectacle, a person creates works of such truth and understanding, depth and relevance that no other word could describe them better.