“I will never forget”

Dr Valentina Napoli, lecturer for Richmond in Rome, has had a poem published recently by the website Love in the Time of COVID, which aims to share, through quality fiction and non-fiction, poetry and dialogue, art and music and more, the collective experiences of the international community during the lockdown period.

Entitled, ‘I Will Never Forget/ Non Dimenticherò Mai’, Dr Napoli’s poem reflects on how the pandemic affected her life and the world around her. It commences:

I Will Never Forget/ Non Dimenticherò Mai
I will never forget the thousands of Italians dead in a few weeks…
I will never forget the shock of losing freedom…
I will never forget people saying, It’s the Third World War…
I will never forget worrying about dying young…
I will never forget my mum’s tears…

In addition to lecturing at Richmond, Dr Napoli has also been a Guest Lecturer and Teaching Assistant in the School of European Languages and Literatures of the University of Auckland. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Auckland and has published articles and book reviews in the academic journals Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Italian Studies in Southern Africa and Linguistics and Literature Studies.