Poet Profile

Valentina Meloni

Valentina Meloni was born and lived in Rome, now she lives in Val di Chiana together with her son. She writes poetry, haiku, haibun, stories, essays and reviews for several years. She is the editor for the interviews column "Maieutiké" in the Euterpe Literature Magazine where she also takes care of the italian haiku column "Komorebi" . She is also editor of the essay and reviews columns in the Diwali-contaminated magazine. She writes in other magazines of literature and culture and in her eco-poetry and deep ecology blogs. She is editor of the introductory note to the anthological volumes Haiku tra meridiani e paralleli (Haiku between meridians and parallels), FusibiliaLibri, 2016, 2018; and she also wrote the introductory note to the anthology of the Italian Poetry Prize L’arte in versi for the 2017 haiku section.

Awards and Other Honors: She chooses to participate in very few prizes. The latest Italian award won for Haiku Poetry is the 2017 Mangiaparole Award with the unpublished haiku collection Karumi - small poems of lightness. The prize includes the publication of the book by the Italian publisher Progetto Cultura during 2018.

Books Published: The illustrated haiku book Nei giardini di Suzhou (Fusibilialibri, 2015); the illustrated poems Le regole del controdolore (Temperino Rosso, 2016); the haiku and haibun book attached to Otata’s magazine nanita (Otata’s Bookshelf, 2017); the poetic-photographic book about gender violence Eva (NOSM, 2018); a self-anthology of deep eco-poetry Alambic (Progetto Cultura, 2018); the illustrated fairy tales for children: Storia di Goccia (Librido, 2017); and Nanuk e l’albero dei desideri (Temperino Rosso, 2017).

in the cup of tea
two falling raindrops --
I drink the clouds

autumn night --
how many things unsaid
in your eyes

what's the dream
of the child in the cradle
while he's smiling?

thud of pine cone --
the last migratory birds disperse
into the fog

red cheeks --
my baby steals
a pomegranate

dreams vanish
in the song of the wind --
tlin tlin tlin

Credits: "in the cup of tea" - Failed haiku A Journal of English Senryu 2:16 (April 2017); "what's the dream" - Failed haiku A Journal of English Senryu 2:24 (December 2017); "red cheeks" – Haikuniverse (October 7, 2017); "autumn night" - The Mainichi (Japan, December 21, 2017) [to Maria Laura V.]; "thud of pine cone" - The Mainichi (Japan, December 14, 2017) [Selected by Dhugal J. Lindsay]; "dreams vanish" - Failed haiku A Journal of English Senryu 2:18 (June 2017).