Nino Aragno has announced a new volume of poems for autumn of 2020, Divieto di sosta. The trajectory of Ballerini's poetry can be clearly divided into three phases. The first is apprenticeship, the second an oracular phase and, thirdly, a consistent series of “developed subjects” in which an unrenounced narrative aim is “led astray” by stimuli inherent in the language in which it is manifested. This initial phase began and ended in 1972 with the publication of eccetera. E, in which Ballerini brought to bear lessons of the Neoavanguardia and which reflected Pagliarani's influence. The second phase is characterized by extreme conciseness of conversational material. In latest phase, encompassing works between approximately 1994 and 2020, a rational function takes effect. Many texts are organized as a succession of apodoses and protases, as polysyndetic catalogues and with de-pragmaticizing appositions. “Rather than beheading meaning,” writes Cavatorta in the introduction to the Oscar Mondadori edition, “one must speak of liberation, because without this transformation, one remains trapped in the consoling slavery of a deceitfully confessional ego.” Ballerini mixes sectorial and foreign languages (living and dead), and idiomatic and vernacular expressions. Rich in literary references, his poetry is rife with straightforward as well as parodic quotations from both high literature (Shakespeare, Dante, the Dolce Stil Novo, Ezra Pound, etc.) and popular ballads and songs. His lexicon includes borrowings—perversely turned inside-out – from sketches of Italian variety shows. Work as a Critic As a critic, Ballerini has worked principally in the fields of medieval poetry, Futurism, and contemporary poetry and art. The first includes essays on Cavalcanti and the Dolce Stil Novo. With regard to Futurism, he produced two editions of the Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's novels, Gli indomabili [The Untameables] (Mondadori, 2000) and Mafarka il futurista [Mafarka the Futurist] (Mondadori, 2003). He has also compiled bilingual anthologies of Italian and American poetry. Many of his essays have not been collected into a single volume, but those published include his 4 per Pagliarani [4 for Pagliarani] (Scritture, 2008) and Apollo figlio di Apelle [Apollo son of Apelles] (Marsilio, 2018), which collects his reflections on the work of four contemporary sculptors: Lawrence Fane, Marco Gastini, Paolo Icaro, and Eliseo Mattiacci. Anthologies of American poetry published in Italy include La rosa disabitata [The derelict rose] (with Richard Milazzo, Feltrinelli, 1981) and in collaboration with Paul Vangelisti and Gianluca Rizzo, four volumes on new American poetry: Los Angeles (Mondadori,