*Brontolo and the Magnolia* doesn’t offer advice, but suggests an attitude: toward time, others, homes, and things. Emotion, curiosity, irony: it is possible to survive poetically—you just have to want to.

“The little man stands under the magnolia and watches the comings and goings of family members, relatives, and guests. I have no idea how he ended up there. I didn’t snatch him from some garden, and I don’t remember buying him. He just appeared out of nowhere. I think he’s Brontolo, but I’m not sure. About thirty winters have gone by, changing his appearance. It happens to us, too, but it takes a few more years.”

An old house, a centuries-old tree, a four-year-old girl arguing with her grandfather using the subjunctive. After *Socrates, Agata, and the Future*, Beppe Severgnini chooses a place close to his heart to tackle the issue at the heart of every issue: the passage of time. And he offers us a dozen suggestions, illuminated by the verses of fifty Italian poets from the last century. Have lunch outdoors and give the trees names. Recognize at least twelve bird songs. Opening a book and writing the date in it. Compiling lists and updating them. Not always putting everything in order. Indulging in small pleasures and getting indignant when necessary. Returning to certain places (not all of them). Toasting absent friends. And, of course, respecting Pokémon and the Winx. No imperatives, no exhortations, just verbs in the infinitive: a form dear to poetry. “The poet is a diagnostician,” Mario Luzi claimed. “Someone who, with a sudden glance, can grasp the elusive essence that escapes others.” We don’t always remember this, though—until poetry takes us by surprise: in the lyrics of a song, in a memory from school, in a friend’s perfect reply. In a book like this one.