I Come from a Long Line of People Who Don’t Use Words

The book I Come from a Long Line of People Who Don’t Use Words is a collection of poems by artist Tiziana La Melia, translated into Italian. It includes a selection of poems from her first two books of poetry and a new body of work titled The Simple Life, which focuses on collective healing through food preparation and magic culinary therapies.

The formation of the book was the result of a dedicated collaboration between the author, the editor Sonia D’Alto, and the contributors Federica Bueti, Claudia Gangemi, and Elisa Ferrari. The editor, in her text, mentions the collaborative process: “By diluting and postponing work plans and distilling desires into semantic concerns, the roles of editor, translator, author, and proofreader at times eroded, becoming sensitive to the possibilities of multiple voices, reciprocity, and collective decision making.”

The English title of the publication, I Come from a Long Line of People Who Don’t Use Words, refers to the author’s inheritance. This heritage includes experiences of instability, migration, and rural culture in Southern Italy. The author depicts this subaltern condition in both urban and rural settings, specifically Vancouver and the Okanagan Valley, where the poet lives.

La Melia’s artistic practice is influenced by surrealism, automatism, pop culture, and various forms of mystical counterculture. She follows a lineage of political and spiritual experiments that challenge modern cultural heritage and familial structures. This lineage is related to an aesthetic of psychedelic storytelling, therapies, and ecstatic experiences that help to reimagine reality.

The Publication also comprises a graphic design insert of The Simple Life by Roxanne Maillet, the Editor’s Note: How to write a garden, how to eat a syntax, how to read the new moon by Sonia D’Alto, A Secret-Gushing-Cunt-Filled Garden by Allison Grimaldi Donahue and What Gets Through the Gaps of the Grid by Federica Bueti.