Let’s talk about poetry | Marzia D’Amico

Marzia D’Amico are now a researcher in Lisbon working on Italian studies, comparative literature, and gender studies. Their research focuses on the counter-canon in Italian poetry from the late 1960s onward, studying experimental works by women and gender-nonconforming writers. They aim not to create a “pink ghetto,” but to understand feminism as a driving creative force and a decolonial tool for rebalancing literary history.

D’Amico argue that a feminist lens is essential for restoring attention to marginalized voices and redefining cultural values. Poetry, they insist – recalling Audre Lorde’s “Poetry is not a luxury for women” -shapes how we perceive the world, making it central to education and social change.
As a poet theirself, they write in both English and Italian, exploring nonbinary identities and the political nature of poetic expression.

They warn that today’s biggest feminist challenge is the rise of anti-gender movements attacking academic and activist work. In the future, they fear emancipatory gender expressions may be co-opted or bureaucratized, risking the loss of their transformative power. For D’Amico, feminism is a collective, ongoing practice rooted in shared struggle and intergenerational dialogue.

Three women that inspire Marzia D’Amico

• bell hooks
• Silvia Federici
• Judith Butler
• and also: Audrey Lorde, Theresa de Lauretis, Sara Ahmed, Carla Lonzi

This is part of WP1 | T.1.2. PRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS: RESEARCH, STUDIES, ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, TESTIMONIES OF WITNESSES