Alessio Zanelli, born in 1963, is an Italian poet who has long adopted English as his creative writing language.
 
His work has appeared in over 200 literary journals, anthologies and charity publications from 18 countries. He has published nine poetry books: six original collections, a chapbook and two bilingual selections. His sixth collection, The Invisible (2024), is now out from Greenwich Exchange, London. His third collection, Straight Astray (Troubador Publishing, Leicester), received an Honorable Mention at the 2008 London Book Festival.
 
Zanelli is the former poetry editor of Private Photo Review (an international review of photography and short writings), the Italian Stanza Representative for the Poetry Society of London and a featured poet in the 2006 edition of Poet’s Market.
 
Among his many interests and hobbies are music (from rock to classical, his greatest heroes being Deep Purple and Beethoven), history, modern physics, cosmology and scenic photography, even though his greatest passion is probably long-distance running, having he completed over 100 marathons and ultramarathons plus countless various-distance races on every kind of terrain across Italy and Europe.
 
He lives with his wife Jane, also a writer, and works as a wealth consultant in his pretty, tranquil, understated hometown Cremona, along the banks of the Po River, in Lombardy, northern Italy.
 
Review comments:
 

Zanelli’s poetry deals with things that matter to all of us: birth, ageing and death; love and loss; the meaning (or non-meaning) of life. A central theme of The Invisible is that of belonging: we are at home but not at home in our relationships, in the natural world, in the universe itself. How can our value as intelligent loving beings – Zanelli asks – be reconciled with our total insignificance in the context of cosmic space and time? He sees contradictions everywhere: in the reality and unreality of our experience and memory; in our strivings to understand what cannot be understood; in our efforts to see what is invisible. Moving and thought-provoking by turns, this collection is impressive both for its range and for its intensity of feeling.

 

Michael Swan on The Invisible (Greenwich Exchange, London, 2024)

 
 

Questing, quizzical, lyric and tender, these poems quiver with light and the energy of language, giving import and illumination to worlds both inner and outer. The reader will be taken on beautiful and essential journeys.

 

Penelope Shuttle on The Secret Of Archery (Greenwich Exchange, London, 2019)

 
 

Zanelli’s poems are liminal, hovering between light and darkness, between elements, between the author’s mother language and his adopted language. Poems of twilight when, as Celts believed, the other world is briefly revealed. Evasive, tantalising, they compose a Book of Shadows, enticing the reader to enter into Alessio’s vision.

 

Gabriel Griffin on Over Misty Plains (Indigo Dreams, Leicestershire, 2012)

 
 

We can learn a lot about ourselves from how others use our language. Alessio Zanelli has paid our language, Edward Thomas’ English words, a rare compliment, in turn we should take the time to read what he has to say.

 

John Plevin on Straight Astray (Troubador, Leicestershire, 2005)

 
 

Alessio Zanelli is member of a rare set of poets who don’t write in their native language. He writes in English, a language he has made himself master of and extended to such a degree that the poetry he writes is of a quality that stands equal to the work of the majority of poets born into and raised in the language he’s using. At its best, English is not any easy language for those not born into it to master, but Zanelli has succeeded, even to a level where he handles the idiosyncrasies of the language as naturally and expertly as its native speakers.

 

Alistair Paterson (former Editor of Poetry New Zealand)

 
 

Books:
 

The Invisible, Greenwich Exchange, London, 2024, ISBN 978-19109967-1-3
Amalgam, Cyberwit, Allahabad (IN), 2021, ISBN 978-93906019-2-9
Ghiaccielo/Skyce, Impremix Visual Grafika, Turin (IT), 2021, ISBN 978-88855728-4-3
The Secret Of Archery, Greenwich Exchange, London, 2019, ISBN 978-19109963-0-0
Over Misty Plains, Indigo Dreams, Leicestershire, 2012, ISBN 978-19074016-0-2
33 Poesie/33 Poems, Montedit, Melegnano (IT), 2011, ISBN 978-88658706-4-8
Straight Astray, Troubador, Leicestershire, 2005, ISBN 978-19052371-7-3
Small Press Verse & Poeticonjectures, Xlibris, Philadelphia (USA), 2003, ISBN 978-14010683-1-8
Loose Sheets, Upfront Publishing, Leicestershire, 2002, ISBN 978-18442602-5-6