Sprezzatura - April 23 2022

 

Sprezzatura

April 23 2022

The Italians have sprezzatura,

a word that means something like “careless ease”

and has no English equivalent.

A word that begins with effervescence,

the tongue

almost playfully spitting

those fizzy zeds.

Then ends

with an expressive wave of the hand

as the sound rises and falls,

the lips

rounding on the next-to-last syllable

with voluptuous pleasure,

like a blown kiss

given freely to the world.

This is style, this is chic,

wearing shoes

of handcrafted leather,

a slimly cut suit

of fine Italian cloth.

An espresso

downed in one flamboyant gulp,

as the hands talk

and eyes twinkle.

So why in English

is there nothing similar?

Why do we not live

with the same joie-de-vivre

and unselfconscious ease?

Sipping tea

in a food court plastic chair

in a stiff corporate suit

or business casual skirt.

Speaking in our clipped guttural way

with quiet hands

and barely moving lips.

A language that could use more spice.

A language that could loosen up,

have more music

then turn it louder.

Could learn to linger

over antipasto and wine

during a long leisurely dinner,

on a warm night

in a charming piazza

under the stars.

But it's still winter here,

and in the cold and snow

we are stiff and pale

and closed up tight;

like buds

that were set in fall

and must stay dormant to survive.

I came across this word in Cathal Kelly's tribute (the Globe and Mail's terrific sports columnist) to the great Montreal Canadien Guy Lafleur on the occasion of his untimely death. And as soon as I read it, I was delighted by the mouth feel of the word as I sounded it out in my head. If you are in love with language, that expression — “mouth feel” — makes perfect sense: there is a kind of kinaesthetic pleasure in pronouncing certain words and combinations of words, and good writers take advantage of this. Italian is full of them. English is far more constrained and up-tight — the pleasures are more subtle. This difference is as much cultural as linguistic, and — at the risk of shameless stereotyping— that is the idea the poem is playing with.

My apologies to speakers of American English. “Zed” may not make sense to them. I could have instead written “zz”, but then the delightful rhyme would have been lost to them. I trust they will figure it out.