Giordano
Durante

Giordano Durante is a poet and translator from Gibraltar. 

Giordano is a regular contributor to Radio Gibraltar’s ‘Pause for Reflection’. Since 2014, he has delivered radio talks on celebrity culture, free speech, patriotism, the value of reading and the poetry of Thomas Hardy. 

He took part in the inaugural ‘Gib Talks’ event in 2015 and was a speaker at the 2018 Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival. 

His first book of poems ‘West’ was published in 2017. This debut collection contains poems about Gibraltar, the cities of Andalucía and the metropolitan gloom of London - three places which have structured Giordano’s literary sensibilities. A Gibraltar Chronicle review of ‘West’, by Conchita Triay, praised “Durante's economic but rich use of language and his penetrating, pithy observations of human behaviour.” 

‘Machotes’, an e-pamphlet examining troubled notions of masculinity, was released in 2020. 

‘Nostalgia Elsewhere’, his third collection, was launched in 2022.

Writing about this collection, the Gibraltarian author M.G. Sanchez said: “Durante’s latest collection sees ordinary objects, people and locations transformed: a local drunk becomes an unlikely philosopher, a housing estate takes on mythical qualities and a break-time snack inspires reflections on adolescence. Although rooted in the local, in memory and the past, there is an elegiac thread running through his work. These poems, like those in his debut ‘West’, have a haunting, out-of-time quality.”

The book was also reviewed by Humbert Hernandez (Gibraltar Chronicle, May 2022): “Nostalgia Elsewhere is an anthology of Durante’s poetry which has never been so rigorous and diverse. Its subjects and themes range far and wide in the portrayal of the faults, the foibles and also the celebratory aspects in our community; they are often most irreverent, reflecting our daily banter and vernacular. They are snapshots firmly anchored in our llanito culture and peppered with many llanito expressions giving the whole collection an immediacy and raciness which is exhilarating and most relevant; above all, they are most amusing statements. However, overriding the entire work lies a serious criticism of our attitudes to living and our misguided fanaticism. This is a landmark book which champions the continuing dialogue of voices past and present, exploring the strongest expression words can take, the poem, by one of the most original and outstanding poets from Gibraltar.”

Giordano lives in Gibraltar’s Upper Town with his partner and their daughter.