‘What is “Chants for Love” about?’
‘How does “Chants for Love” sound like?’
‘How will I benefit from reading “Chants for Love”?’
‘How long did it take, to make “Chants for Love”?’
‘What about the author of “Chants for Love”?’
‘What do people say, about “Chants for Love”?’
“Chants for Love” in data and numbers
Downloadable “Chants for Love”-related official material
‘What is “Chants for Love” about?’
In a desert somewhere far away, the wind blows, incessantly, day and night, now gently, now roughly, moulding the sand dunes to its caprice, grain after grain, and howling its solitude, to seek the comrading mercy of those daring to venture and wander in that desolation.
Yet, at times, those inconsolable cries seem to shape and modulate themselves so to bring voices from another place, perhaps from another time, too: voices of people chanting their craving for a twin soul, voices of lovers singing blessings for the treasure their bond is, voices of shattered hearts lamenting for the piercing pain of a feeling which used to be, and now is gone and lost, buried under the unforgiving sands of Time… voices, all those, which perhaps seek the peace which, possibly, can only come and be found, for whoever has a story to tell, in being listened to.
“Chants for Love” is a collection of poetry daringly aiming at listening to those ancient voices and securing them in the ink permanently embedded in a blank page, so that the stories they have to recount may be brought back to life, and their urge to share their sentiment may be quenched.
It leads the reader on a journey, along 216 pages and 123 chants, subdivided in chapters which correspond to various stages, phases, seasons of love, with both its lights and shadows, with both sunlit and rainy days, with both merry laughter and sighs of shaking passion, and heart-piercing tears and laments, so that the reader, together with the poet, may be naturally pushed to look within, and find her/his own feelings, and bravely face them, for such feelings are as ancient as our capability to feel, think, love, and will follow us on our path, no matter the milestones of our progress we will leave behind.
Daniele Bergamini, October 2018
How does “Chants for Love” sound like?’
Chant no. 17, “The emotion of you”
Oh, my beloved!
I sing your praises
and my words soon get stuck
in my throat
for the emotion of you
As many have the misfortune
to sing of things
they can only dream about,
and long for,
without even ever meeting them,
forever,
until it feels too much,
to bear…
…but you, you exist!
And I… I know you do
Chant no. 98, “Hands (The whole firmament)”
Oh, my beloved,
who came with warm winds,
and ruffled the hair on my head,
and the thoughts inside,
where did you fly?
Oh, my beloved,
who knew all the hymns,
but taught me only laments,
who is trying to derive you, now?
Oh, my beloved,
of whose warnings I used to doubt!
You, who left without a word,
are you reading the signs?
Oh, my beloved ones now gone!
Oh, my beloved ones yet to come!
Each time I was left
with my hands all empty,
I believed my life was void,
and I, just nothing
But then, one day, I saw them,
those hands, of mine:
that’s when I opened my eyes,
wherein the whole firmament
got poured
all at once
‘How will I benefit from reading “Chants for Love”?’
A human being is, without exaggerating, a sort of universe, incorporating within its own nature and existence any sort of… I don’t want to say, “contradiction”, for it conveys a sense of conflict, and I won’t use “duality”, as well, for it seems to imply an aut aut, an irreconcilable opposition of terms…
So, I’ll rather say that a human being is an universe incorporating within any sort of variety of states, terms and possibilities: body and soul, mind and heart, misery and infinity, reduction and expansion.
Are the extremes in these couplets totally opposite one to the other, impossible to express at once?
I firmly believe that our greatest victory can come from learning how to balance and integrate these terms, no matter how apparently mutually exclusive, and how to draw from each the best which it has to offer.
Would we stop to walk for the sake of focusing on empowering our arms?
Would we take the resolution to keep our eyes closed for the sake of focusing on listening the world around?
We are complex beings, given by a multiplicity of instances, needs, possibilities and capabilities, gifts, and there’s no reason to neglect one side in favour of others.
It’s in this spirit, in an effort to be faithful to the human nature, that “Chants for Love” is a journey which at once progresses on more tracks: the heart, but also the mind, the soul, as well as the body.
From reading this body of work as a whole, from letting it reach you like many waves of a generous sea, you will experience love with all of yourself, with all of your human sides.
And the outcome will be that of letting each single facet of your person be nurtured and enriched, and, even more, that of seeing, at the apex of book in its natural progression, how such sides and facets are not forced to perpetually be enemies, but rather and should be allies: of each other, and of you as a whole, especially, to the benefit of your own balance and wellness.
This book will generously bless you with enrichment for the soul, delight for the senses, revitalization for the heart, enlightenment for the mind.
And to return to its poems along your lifetime, while you will be progressing in experience and maturity, will certainly let you discover more and more of its shades and facets, like if it was a mirror, by means of whose reflection you will further deepen the knowledge of love and life, and of yourself.
‘How long did it take, to make “Chants for Love”?’
…or the quest for the arche of Chants for Love.
I published the book on June 28, 2017, after six months of relentless and love-powered work. But would it be exact, and, what’s more important, fair, to state that the genesis of this project took that little? Would it make justice to the material composing the book, and, transitively, to the Author, that is, me? It really wouldn’t, for the book, despite its structure and its graphical vest are important, wouldn’t have possibly existed without the poems, which fill it and give it body, and, first of all, a soul.
And these poems, I composed them between the early January 2017, and somewhere halfway the working of the book. But, again, to find the idea for a single poem, for a single story on which to build and open a window made up of stanzas and verses, that wouldn’t explain the magic behind a whole corpus of 123 poems which stand not only singularly, but also together, as a cohesive palace of wonders somewhere in a desert of silence.
So it takes to say that the seed of these seeds, the sparkle which lits each single one of these 123 burning fires began growing many months before, during a journey of fertile inspiration, and discovery and experimentation of my poetic side (which I little knew I have), into a more and more irresistible wish to be able to write a kind of poem which could feel ancient in its tone, and solemn, as if it had been written centuries or even millennia ago, and yet which could still (and aimed to) talk to a heart beating nowadays, lost in the cacophonous rhythms of a traffic jam, of fingers hastily running on a keyboard to communicate with someone far away, of a plethora of music genres which more often than not convey our desolation within.
But where, and when, does it come from, this living matter which pulsates, burns, cries, flies, all along these 123 constructions of stanzas and verses?
It would be unfair to myself, to my soul, to my heart, to my experience conquered day after day, hope after hope, pain after pain, if I didn’t acknowledge that each single heartbeat of mine spent (not wasted: that, never) in the name of love, no matter how it went, throughout a period I can quantify in around 35 years, has been like a seed left fall with hope in the soil of my life.
So, we could say, without landing far from the target of a honest truth, that I’ve been working on this book throughout all my life, even if for most of the time I wasn’t completely aware of it.
We could say – and it’s exactly what I’m actually doing, here and now – that the jumps and the falls of, and the stabs in, and the cracks on, the heart, my heart, my own “old” heart, concurred to it, no matter all the days and the nights and the endless moments fallen in a hole and persuaded not to be able to see a way climbing up back, it all fed my inspiration, which into these chants suddenly poured out for more than a hundred times, as if it had always been waiting for that moment in which it would have repaid me of everything.
In which I, would have repaid myself for everything.
With the help of God.
‘What about the author of “Chants for Love”?’
“Daniele Bergamini was born in Mirandola, in 1972. He lives in Bologna, where he loves, believes, prays, hopes, daydreams, reasons, learns, talks to machineries and souls, helps, dances within, and emits creativity in quantity, like a curious sun which finds inspiration in the stars of the night, and in those in the abysses of his own soul.”
This is what the bio on the back cover of “Chants for Love” enigmatically says about me.
On one side, some mystery is good and may add curiosity and intrigue the imagination of the reader.
On the other, paradoxically, I didn’t want to attract too much attention on myself and on my own life, nor I want it now.
Not that I’m not important, as a human being, and as the author: this book would not exist, without me!
And not that otherwise you can’t know anything of me… in so many of the chants in my book I expose this or that feeling I, once or for longer, have been nurturing within.
But what I mean to say is that this book is not meant to be about me, but rather about everyone.
Any reader can imagine themselves dedicating one poem or the other to anyone else, whoever they are.
It’s as universal as the feeling of love is, I believe.
OK, I’ll tell you a bit more.
Take another look at my reported bio above and notice that “(he) loves” put before any other verb.
If I had to pick one verb describing what has been the leitmotiv, the common thread, the guiding principle along which my life has been unrolling its course, other than “to daydream” and “to create”, well, such verb would exactly be “to love”.
Not just romantically, even though my quest to search for a soulmate has been lasting for the most part of my life (and still goes on, at the time I’m writing, in this Autumn 2018).
I love Lady Life, you have to know, for the precious chance it is.
I love my lifetime disability, no matter how much challenging it has been to deal with, for the it’s been providing me with plenty of chances to dig within and find treasures.
I love God, for how He has been generously showing love to me, in His mysterious and surprising ways.
I love the Universe I’m part of, so incredibly rich of wonders.
I love existence, in a word, and I hope you do the same.
Do you?
‘What do people say, about “Chants for Love”?’
Amazon Customer:
““Chants for Love” takes the reader on an epic tale of loves journey, full of yearning and beautiful prose…it transports the reader into the deepest longing of the heart to connect with another in an ecstatic union of complete surrender. Absorbing and heartfelt, woven with phrases that lift the spirit in joy, it also resonates with an understanding of loss and life lessons… the poems/chants D.B. has created feel at once timeless in their euphoric expressions of the human experience of love bringing out our best qualities…(…) and so relatable in describing the pain and struggle Love can also bring, ultimately leading to growth and new understandings of oneself and what love is… a joy to read!”
Andrea Lodi (Writer):
“Daniele (…) has revealed strong poetical gifts, not like a traditional poet, but rather by drawing from fragments of emotions, life experiences, impressions, and translating them in love verses. An excellent work (…)”
Soshinie Singh (Writer and Poet):
“A really beautiful compilation of poems which felt soothing to me (…)”
Oyindamola Shoola (Writer and Poet):
“”Chants for Love” is a collection of love poems that effortlessly serenades a reader into the longing for a significant other. (…) With admirable consistency in the style of writing and literary devices that Daniele employed, he evokes feelings that are best comprehended in one’s heart. (…)”
Ronni (Poet):
“This is a book of pure art that deserves more than the modern reader. By all rights, “Chants for Love” should be studied in the great universities and colleges as poetry to rival the poets of old and the poet, D.B., should take his place among the great poets of our time. This is no Bukowski wannabe collection of scribbles; these works are meticulously written and, aided by beautiful illustrations, elevate the spirit of the reader to true artistry. Don’t bother with Dante Alighieri…this is the Italian poet and the collection of Italian poems for this age.”
Palak (Poet):
“(…) D.B.’s “Chants for love” is an epic saga of love. It’s feelings entrapped in words. It’s adrenaline in verses. It’s a joy ride. A good overwhelming of highs and lows. One really feels what the writer intends because it’s written with such fiery passion. You’re lonely ? Go read this because the writer shares your solitude. You’re in love ? Go read this because the writer shares your bittersweet journey. You seek calm ? Go read this because the writer takes you to a journey of unexplored depths of the human psyche. It’s a beautiful, well written, well composed poetry compilation. Recommended to all who wish to have a taste of literature which stands truly apart of its contemporaries.”
Nazish A. (Teacher and Poet):
“This is a beautiful book with so much depth, that each word touches the soul and makes the reader pause and introspect. A must-read for anyone who enjoys poetry and who has loved and lost. It’s a unique page-turner and you’d want to discuss the symbolic twists that punctuate the chants, and the underlying meanings that most of us will be able to relate to. (…)”
Chahat Malik (Writer):
“(…) The poems are so mesmerizing and lead you into some other world. I stopped after reading every chant and thought how deep and beautiful they all were. (…) I strongly recommend this book to everyone who seeks to read some real good poetry and to everyone else who wish to dive into the worlds where you’ll be left mesmerized”
Laura Panzera (Artist):
“(…) these chants for love are fantastic! It feels like reading a story rather than separate chants, and they aren’t cheesy at all. A journey in an arabesque world “à la 1001 nights” where one will experience various situations that are part of everyone’s life. Simple writing yet very polished and thoughtful, no word is placed randomly… I read it in a breath and I suggest it to everyone!”
Alessandro Cospite (Singer, Songwriter and Poet):
“D.B.’s writing flows smoothly and elegantly, but don’t think it’s light-hearted. (…) I’m persuaded that reading this book may benefit both those who have the immense luck to not struggle for their present feelings, and those who actually do it… (…) enrichments always must be shared, and this is a book I’m happy to share in turn!”
“Chants for Love” in data and numbers
Title: Chants for Love
Genre: Poetry
Author: Daniele Bergamini
Year of publishing: 2017
Editions & Versions: Paperback and eBook (Kindle)
No. of pages: 214
No. of poems: 123
No. of illustrations: more than 30
How and where to find Chants for Love:
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Daniele Bergamini Chants Love
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Downloadable “Chants for Love”-related official material
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