The phrase 'italian drink', nearly abstract,
nearly real, like my best ideas comes through
the window, which is where I stand, & some-
times laugh sometimes (almost) cry, & where
abrasively & beautifully ideas for poems
float past. Tonight I'm high. But actually
I must design some words for a poster; as the
summer begins, the nervous summer whose
flowers are strength & lust & nobility &where
there is a sense of forever, & where I write
at night & think of you, where I aim my best
ideas

the text: the poem was written in the
Spring of 1927 while Selli was in Nice
& separated from his Turin friends, for
whose company his fiancÈe it is said,
had temporarily left him. We can assume
the poem is addressed to all of them - it
was sent in a letter "to all of you" - but
particularly to her.
The poster mentioned was a collaborative
effort between the poet & Marquet for an
exhibition of the latter's work. The
poem exists both in English & Italian -
the phrase "tonight I'm high" is from
American jazz, popular then in France, &
"an Italian Drink" was, Selli thought,
English for "an Italian drunk" or "a
drunk Italian", a mistake however which
he liked. It too is in English in both
versions. In manner, construction,
lightness of touch & intentional instab-
ility of emotion it is entirely typical
of Selli's work & person.

the author: b. 1901, Sergio Selli presents
a light and sentimental figure. A
precocious genius in his early teens,
before the War ended his writing already
looked 'ahead' of Futurism, anticipating
the more freely but coherently associative
manner of the 20s, 30s & 40s. Called the
Utrillo of Italian letters - from an early
age his life dominated by alcoholism & his
gift seeming charming but fragile - a truer
comparison for his work is the painting of
his close friend Dufy. Selli's name is
firmly associated with those of certain
painters & a 'milieu' - it has been said
that as Modigliani stands to Picasso so Selli
stands to Apollinaire; & his Paris years,
1919 - 22, are fixed in our minds by his
friends' paintings of him - Chagall's wittily
unmelodramatic reworking of the Absinthe
drinker, & the 'Sergio' series of studies
showing his youthful figure at windows,
tables & doorways, by de La Fresnaye. Selli
who for the French as for most of us
represents a pastel picture of the Italian
summer, its breezes, its delights, its
colour, died in 1932 in an explosion at the
works of his brother's racing motorcycle
shop-cum-factory, a bright flower cut down
in its Spring.

Sergio Selli