What is an ardoretto?

Ardoretto is a coined poetic term formed from ardor, meaning heat, passion, intensity, or desire, and the diminutive -etto. In the same spirit that sonnet began as a little song, an ardoretto is a little ardor.

It is a short lyric poem centered on wanting as something the body notices: a change in breath, pulse, posture, distance, attention, memory, or imagination. It may be erotic, but it does not have to be. Hunger, anticipation, attraction, restraint, absence, ambition, nearness, fascination, and possibility can all belong.

The form is deliberately loose. Compression matters more than counting. Breath matters more than meter. Typography, spacing, interruption, repetition, and silence can become part of the physical movement of the poem.

A collection in progress

The first ardoretto collection is taking shape across tenderness, lust, appetite, restraint, ambition, distance, and the strange moment when wanting becomes physical enough that the page has to move with it.

Founding and anchor pieces include ardoretto per lia, all at once, and strange little word, alongside a growing group of poems built specifically for the form.