City of Water: How Poetry Shaped Milan

Water, more than oil, is projected to be at the center of the world’s struggles in the twenty-first century, and "City of Water" is a case study for the need to harness the enduring might of poetry to generate, sustain and promote collective narratives for the protection of nonhuman aquatic environment, especially within the city. 

Working across traditional scholarly boundaries, "City of Water" addresses the socio-cultural-material entanglements in the aquatic landscape of Milan, Italy. Three Milanese poets (Daria Menicanti, Alda Merini and Milo De Angelis) provide an ideal gateway to the investigation of the connections between text, community and territory that scholars Marco Armiero and Eugenio Turri have observed in other Italian geographical areas. Navigli Project is the book’s digital companion and consists of an interactive exhibit of the cultural history of Milan’s waterways.