ROSSO.NiENTE.

Poliedrico poeta danese, che scrive in lingua madre e contemporaneamente in inglese, Kenneth Krabat è una figura viva dell'underground di Copenaghen o, come direbbe lui stesso, di Købehavn, ed è inoltre un performer e un paroliere.

Mangiatore di vita, le sue poesie non sono altro che il risultato di ciò che ha ingurgitato, masticato, digerito e ributtato fuori. È la vita che è passata dentro di lui, dentro il suo corpo, lungo tutto il tubo digerente.

Krabat vive la contemporaneità, quell'insensata vita occidentale frenetica e apparentemente senza alcuno scopo se non l'accumulo, il ripetersi alienato del lavoro e le mille ipocrisie di una non-autenticità, vero paradigma della nostra epoca.

In ROSSO.NIENTE. Kenneth Krabat apre la finestra, respira l'aria del mondo e si getta fuori. Precipita senza alcun paracadute, senza alcuna protezione, cade e cade, sempre più velocemente e profondamente, nel reale della sua vita, delle sue esperienze, dei suoi sentimenti, del dolore, della morte, dell'amore, di ogni cosa.

Nella bella traduzione di Giovanni Agnoloni, Versi Guasti ospita la prima edizione in italiano di una delle voci di punta della poesia danese.

L’autore

Kenneth Krabat (b. 1963 in København of petrol station manager (mother) and general janitor of oil furnaces, elevators and various craftsmen with the Free Port of København (father)) is a friend of the concept of humanity, of humans as a species in and among species, all of them life, all of them alive, ALL species miracles of evolution as well as results of struggle and death.

Born into a working class family as a single child in Denmark of the 60s praising life also then took place in singular stolen pauses from work, evenings and weekends in the company of friends and family often spent dulling the senses through drinking.

Around 1970 the advent of the “youth rebellion” spilled into the set ways of menial labour, and during that decade workers unions took the place of praise of life on behalf of the voiceless masses, negotiating economic terms as the pinnacle of human civilisation: That in the grand picture all and everyone matter, even low workers. In the rich Western part of the world this encouragement simultaneously had the effect of perpetuating the belief that humans in general are invulnerable, when acting as a flock; that humans as a species can do anything – and by this making humans addicts of commercial products as well as redundant through technology.

Attempting to redeem damages caused by his own life and the lives of humans in general 30 years of poetry, prose, essays and philosophy such as modern day shamanism for Kenneth Krabat has affected a single, simple conclusion. That honestly being able to name a deed “a humane action” seems to be Humanity's only relevant claim to fame:

Empathy. The Open Heart that doesn’t bleed out. Non-demanding compassion. An ability built into the human DNA and passed on through simple demonstration that MAY cause the perpetuation of humanity’s existence on Earth, humanity's one and only Home, and possibly also out there, in that vast and empty Universe – only history will tell.

And without empathy...