'The mentally ill suffer unnameable persecutions, no one knows why. They assume the role of the saint in today's society, since it is presumed that they, rarefied by their own madness, do not suffer like everyone else.' -- Alda Merini. 'In these pages, everything that is touched, even the most painful theme, is transformed into poetry. Every word is a key that finds organ pipes ready to amplify and sublimate the desperation. It's like finding one's self in front of a phenomenon of unconscious lyric power.' -- Ambrogio Borsani, from the Afterword.