User:Anne Prouse/Mario Petrucci

Mario Petrucci (born  1958) is of Italian extraction. He originally trained as a physicist at Selwyn College, Cambridge, later gaining a distinction in teaching and a PhD in optoelectronics (both with UCL) and a degree in Environmental Studies at Middlesex University.

Petrucci is now a freelance poet, poetry organiser and performer, essayist and songwriter. He is the only poet to have been resident at the Imperial War Museum and with BBC Radio 3. Since 2000, through consecutive Fellowships with the Royal Literary Fund (mainly at Oxford Brookes University ), he has implemented public resources of real practical significance for education, creative writing and study skills, including exciting new forms of creative dialogue between science and poetry (such as his unique contribution to creative writing strategies using science, Creative Writing <-> Science ). Between 2003 and 2005, he was a judge for the Poetry Book Society.

Since the late eighties, Petrucci has co-founded the London literary organisation writers inc., the experimental collaborative performance poetry group ShadoWork , and Perdika Press. He has also brought a number of new concepts into poetry criticism, including Spatial Form and Poeclectics. He publishes and broadcasts regularly with such outlets as The Independent, BBC Radio 3's The Verb and BBC Radio 4's Kaleidoscope, and is an important figure incorporating science and ecology in contemporary poetry (see Ecopoetry). The Poetry Society membership voted him one of the top three poets for 2003; over a period of just thirteen years, he won the London Writers Competition a record four times.

Petrucci’s work with poetry for film has captured international recognition, including the Cinequest award and a major showing at the Tate Modern in 2007. Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl and Half Life: a Journey to Chernobyl, both produced through Seventh Art Productions, are based on his Arvon/Daily Telegraph-winning poetry on the Chernobyl disaster.

Poetic development
In Shrapnel and Sheets (1996), Petrucci tracks a compassionate but dissecting eye across European and familial histories. Lepidoptera (2001) presents, unusually, an utterly engaging splicing of the worlds of Art and Science. A rare example of a purely eco-driven poetry collection, Bosco (2001) blends “subjectivity into the physical world… mobilising perception into compelling visions that challenge the way we relate to our environment” (British Council ).

Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl (2004) “leaves us moved and thoughtful” (Joan Bakewell, New Statesman, 2004) and was described by Jackie Kay in The Daily Telegraph as “Heartfelt, ambitious and alive”. It was broadcast on Radio 3, translated for Vsesvit (Ukraine), and made into an award-winning film by Seventh Art Productions. Poetry London placed it among the top five poetry collections to appear that year.

The Stamina of Sheep (2002) and Fearnought (The National Trust, 2006) reveal Petrucci's site-specific vein, merging local narratives and photography with poetry in compelling ways. Fearnought became the subject of a Radio 4 Sunday Feature broadcast (30 December 2007).

Petrucci's work with translation has, more recently, been coming to prominence. His selection of Catullus (2006) is not only “sparklingly witty and up to the minute” (Sphinx 4 ) but also “collapses the fabric of Catullus and translator altogether, leaving us to witness a pencil-beam into a vast, still universality of expression” (Michael Peverett, Intercapillary Space ). Further selections from Montale and Sappho are due.

Flowers of Sulphur (2007) is “crammed with observed and felt detail: as with the best poets, thinking and feeling are, for Petrucci, a single act” (George Szirtes, 2007). Dynamic and thoughtful, this collection provides “a stark reminder of why poetry is such a vivid and necessary art form” (Poetry Book Society Bulletin, 2007).

somewhere is january (2007) represents yet another fresh departure. Its fierce and utterly modern lyricism hails back to the Black Mountain Poets and to the Projectivist poetics of Charles Olson, but also draws us forward into an innovative sense of linguistic drive. Petrucci is developing a distinctive new voice that is “poised, balletic, in its exploration of intellectual and physical, light-bound space” (Simon Jenner, 2007). For Roy Fisher, "Petrucci is somebody working with a lively circumspection in a tradition he's demonstrating not to have been merely an early-to-mid-20th-century exploration."

Some reviews
"A master of the art." Poetry Writers' Yearbook (2007).

"One of several poets including Peter Redgrove, Kathleen Raine and recently Alice Oswald whose scientific training provides an added dimension for poetry... [a] brilliantly varied book by a true European, whose sympathetic understanding extends to every human condition." Anne Born (1996).

"Twin engines drive Mario Petrucci's poetry: one engine is a personal and cultural knowledge of the sweep of European history; the other is a scientific understanding few poets have. Between them, these engines take Mario's poetry to dazzling heights." Ian McMillan (1996). 

"Necessary, cathartic and profound." Amy Wack (2004).

"Poetry on a geological scale… a new track for poets of witness." Brendan O’Connor (2004), in: Verse.

"One of the few contemporary poets exploring explicitly Italian themes and experiences in the mainstream of British literature." Il Punto (1996).

"Written with grave intelligence, these poems... look the almost unspeakable in the eye; they record, warn, caution, memorialise and also celebrate. They are a reminder of what poetry can do for all of us." Philip Gross (2005) - (on Heavy Water).

"Partial quotation cannot possibly convey anything of the power and haunting music of this sequence which should be read by everyone who has any interest in poetry." Vernon Scannell (2004) -  (on Heavy Water).

“Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl is a powerful and moving documentary... a haunting and captivating film. A startling look at the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear accident.” Mark Resnicoff (2008).

Books

 * Shrapnel and Sheets (Headland, 1996) ISBN 0-903074-92-3 (Poetry Book Society Recommendation).
 * Bosco (Hearing Eye: pamphlet 1999; book 2001) ISBN 1-870841-64-6 & ISBN 1-870841-77-8.
 * Lepidoptera (Kite Modern Poetry Series, 88 & 96; 1999, 2001) ISBN 0-907759-47-5 & ISBN 0-907759-87-4.
 * The Stamina of Sheep (the Havering Poems) (The London Borough of Havering/ Bound Spiral Press, 2002) ISBN 0-9539939-1-4.
 * The Havering Poetry Study Pack (The London Borough of Havering/ Bound Spiral Press, 2002) ISBN 0-9539939-2-2.
 * High Zest and the Doggerel March (Wilfred Owen – Genius or Sugar-stick?) (Bound Spiral Press, 2002) ISSN 0955 3819
 * Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl (Enitharmon Press, 2004) ISBN 1-900564-34-3.
 * Half Life (Poems for Chernobyl) (Heaventree Press, 2004) ISBN 0-9545317-3-6.
 * Catullus (Perdika Press, 2006) ISBN 1-905649-00-2 (second printing 2007, ISBN 978-1-905649-00-6).
 * Fearnought (Poems for Southwell Workhouse) (The National Trust, 2006) ISBN 1-84359-251-7 or ISBN 978-1-84359-251-8.
 * Flowers of Sulphur (Enitharmon Press, 2007) ISBN 978-1-904634-37-9.
 * somewhere is january (Perdika Press, 2007) ISBN 978-1-905649-06-8.
 * Sappho (Perdika Press, 2008) ISBN 978-1-905649-09-9.

Films

 * Heavy Water: a film for Chernobyl (made with Phil Grabsky and David Bickerstaff) Seventh Art Productions, 2006.
 * Half Life: a journey to Chernobyl (made with Phil Grabsky and David Bickerstaff) Seventh Art Productions, 2006.

Residencies and fellowships

 * 2008 – 09 .... Royal Literary Fund Fellow, University of Westminster (Marylebone)
 * 2006 – 08 .... Royal Literary Fund, Research Project Fellowship: Science and Writing
 * 2004 – 06 .... Southwell Workhouse (Fearnought Project)
 * 2004 – 05 .... BBC Radio 3 (first poet in residence)
 * 2003 ........... BBC World Service
 * 2002 ........... Cabinet War Rooms
 * 2000 – 02 .... Year of the Artist
 * 1999 et seq .. Imperial War Museum (first poet in residence)

Awards

 * 2008    somewhere is january (Perdika Press): Writers' Forum, Chapbook Choice
 * 2007    Cinequest Award, ‘Best Short Documentary’ (Half Life: a Journey to Chernobyl)
 * 2005/6  Arts Council England ‘Grants for the Arts’: Science in Poetry
 * 2005    Winner, London Writers Competition
 * 2004    Winner, London Writers Competition
 * 2004    National Poetry Competition: 3rd Prize & Commended
 * 2003    Essex Book Awards ‘Best Fiction’ Prize 2000-2002
 * 2003    Silver Wyvern Award
 * 2002    Daily Telegraph/ Arvon International Poetry Prize
 * 2002    Arts Council England Writers’ Award
 * 1999    Bridport Poetry Prize
 * 1998    New London Writers Award (London Arts)
 * 1998    Winner, London Writers Competition
 * 1998    Winner, Sheffield Thursday Prize
 * 1997    Winner, Sheffield Thursday Prize
 * 1997    Winner, inaugural Irish Times Perpetual Trophy
 * 1996    Poetry Book Society Recommendation
 * 1996    Frogmore Poetry Prize
 * 1996    Edith Kitt Memorial Award
 * 1995    Edith Kitt Memorial Award
 * 1993    Winner, London Writers Competition

Some Sources

 * Author's official website
 * British Council website (contemporary writers)
 * British and Irish Poets: a Biographical Dictionary, 449-2006 (ed. W. Stewart, McFarland, 2007) ISBN 978-078642-891-5
 * Writersartists.net Poetry Society
 * PBS Pamphlet judging
 * (278 KiB): the artist and the self in the aftermath of Chernobyl - Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 31/3 (2006).