Coffee Stains On My Books: Poetry collection (Stefania Lucchetti - Contemporary Italian Poetry: Bilingual Editions)

by Stefania Lucchetti

In "Coffee Stains On My Books," Stefania Lucchetti invites readers on a deep journey of introspection through her captivating poetry. With rich life experiences as her backdrop, Stefania masterfully intertwines everyday moments with classical references, creating a symphony of deeply resounding emotions. Throughout the collection, Stefania delves into the intricacies of human relationships, exploring the bonds shared with loved ones and the transformative connections forged with places, art, and the extraordinary. Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of influences, including literature, philosophy, mythology, and science, Stefania seamlessly blends imagination with reality, intellectual with emotional exploration.
One of the unique features of this collection is Stefania's use of both English and Italian in her poetry. The bilingual structure not only adds depth and richness to the collection but also mirrors the constant flow of her thoughts and reflections. As readers navigate between languages, they are immersed in the beauty and nuances of both, enhancing their experience of Stefania's poetic world.
With lyrical grace and profound insight, Stefania's poetry transcends traditional boundaries, offering readers a profound glimpse into the complexities of the human experience. Each poem is a reflection of the depth and richness of life, capturing its essence in all its beauty and complexity. "Coffee Stains On My Books" is more than just poetry; it is a testament to the power of language and imagination, inspiring readers to embrace the magic of everyday existence and to cherish the myriad moments that make life truly extraordinary.

Genres: Poetry

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 23, 2024

About the author

Stefania Lucchetti is a contemporary award-winning Italian poet and essayist. She is bilingual (Italian-English) and writes in both languages.

Born in 1975 in Italy, she saw her first poem published at the age of 13 while living in the US with her family, marking the beginning of a long journey as wordsmith. After the diploma at the liceo classico Alighieri in Gorizia and juris doctorate from the Catholic University of Milan in 1999 with a thesis on the liberalisation of the telecommunications regulatory framework, she embarked on a career as a multiqualified lawyer in the field of international commercial law in Milan, London and Hong Kong, without ever ceasing to write. Among the first Italian lawyers to specialize in telecommunications and new technologies, she advised several early internet pioneers during the dot-com boom. Lucchetti was the first Italian lawyer to also qualify as a solicitor in Hong Kong SAR, after qualifying in the UK. She also obtain a second master’s degree in clinical psychology out of personal interest and to enrich her knowledge base and her writing.

Her profile is listed in Italian Poetry Org, Wikipoesia, and Poetesse Donne.

Reviews

[❀ Tia ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

| ARC REVIEW |

Introspective, powerful and thought-provoking.

Coffee Stains On My Books is a beautifully written collection of poems focusing on the complexity and fluidity of human emotions. These poems cover a broad range of themes including relationships, heartbreak, motherhood, artistic expression, grief, and re-discovering oneself.

My favourite poems from this collection were the ones that focused on the realities of relationships with others and oneself; the hard work needed to maintain a loving bond, and the brutal realisation that sometimes life doesn't work out the way you had planned.
Some of my personal favourites were:
⁀જ⁀➴ Second Class Train Ticket
⁀જ⁀➴ The Aftermath
⁀જ⁀➴ Coffee Stains On My Books
⁀જ⁀➴ Banalities

Poetry is so incredibly personal, and even though I didn't resonate with some of the poems in this book and found a few a little bit repetitive, I was able to appreciate the beauty and emotion poured into each and every page.

Thank you to NetGalley, and Stefania Lucchetti for gifting this eBook in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own.

❀ Tia ❀

[Angelina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a honest review. Thank you Netgalley & Publisher.

For this poetry collection I found myself going back and forth between three stars and four stars. It is well written and the subject is interesting. The poems are deep, personal and honest. It is a beautiful collection of poems. It has a feminist vibe to it, the way that it is written and told. I liked it a lot!

Of course, as with all poetry collections, there are ones I like a little less and there are ones that will stay with me for a long while.

[Pamela Jo Mason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry always gets me. I like reading and re-reading. The English and Italian text is an interesting twist.

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5

A creative and refreshing collection by bilingual poet Stefania Lucchetti.
As someone with Italian heritage and Italian- speaking family, I was so excited to see a collection featuring both languages that connect in my life. (Mind you, I can’t speak Italian fluently, but know enough to get the general gist of a conversation.)

I personally didn’t connect much with the artwork featured in this poetry collection, which is normally one of my favourite aspects of modern poetry. However the writing was beautiful, with some poems standing out more than others. I liked the influence that Mythology had on some of the works and how they connected to Lucchetti’s life.

Some of my favourite poems in the collection consisted of those about writing and the poets experience of femininity, life and motherhood (the latter being especially surprising to me as I myself am not a parent and have no interest in being!)
Schrödinger’s cat
Banalities
Eve and Lilith
Teenager
The heritage
Blue notebook

Overall, a collection I would recommend to people looking to connect more with Italian writers and poetry, or those like me who have Italian / English heritage or can speak both languages.

Thank you to the author for providing me a copy of this collection via NetGalley.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing hits harder than life, and this poetry collection does exactly that.
"The soul does not have a storyline, and neither does poetry, which serves as its language".

This collection of poems, compiled in the midst of life's disorder and events, does not follow a logical order, but evokes the fragility of life and words, how much our thoughts corrupt us, and how mythology, although sometimes unknown, intertwines mysticism and reality as evenly as poetry and life itself.
The presence of simultaneous translation takes us much deeper into the fact that, despite linguistic barriers, experiences are not so different.
Just as it is sometimes difficult to see ourselves reflected in other people's thoughts, words unite us, intertwine us, making us seem more similar than ever before.

Thank you, NetGalley and Stefania Lucchetti, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Joanna HL · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve just finished Coffee Stains on My Books and I really enjoyed it. I loved that it’s bilingual, with English next to Italian. There’s something really interesting about reading poetry in a language you don’t understand, you still feel the meaning somehow.

The poems feel a bit unordered and chaotic in a way that reminded me of how your brain jumps between thoughts and emotions. They’re not my usual type of poetry and I didn’t love every single one, but they definitely made me stop and think, which I think is kind of the point. My favourite was Charon. I also loved the artwork throughout, it’s colourful and breaks things up nicely.

It’s quite a deep collection with lots of different themes, but everything feels rooted in emotion. Not something I rushed through, more something I dipped into and sat with, and I really liked that

[Sabrina Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always love a good poetry collection 💗

[Tina Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely love the juxtaposition of the italian on one side and the english on the other. Also all the references to the greek godesses were beautiful.

[Courtney Pityer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this in a giveaway.

[Robin Pelletier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a super interesting collection of poetry with a mythological slant. I really liked seeing the poems in Italian along side the English translated poems. I liked seeing how the words worked together and didn’t. I liked seeing the patterns in one language vs the other. I also liked seeing the comparison with Italian and Spanish. I liked the titles of the poems and all the Greek myths.

[Nicole Perkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

In “Coffee Stains On My Books,” Stefania Lucchetti weaves Greek mythology with episodes of modern life. I found some of Lucchetti’s pieces to be very moving; “Teenager” made me misty-eyed thinking about my own sixteen year old. “Words” describes what draws writers to their craft, the allure and the need to capture the words floating around us each day. “Art, faith, and hope” reads like a prayer itself: “There is nothing more powerful than hope. / Hope expressed as art, / hope expressed as faith, / hope expressed as magic / and art and faith and hope expressed as prayer. / This is the soul of magic.” Lucchetti has given her readers a lovely collection of modern-day mythology, reflective of any person’s thoughts, loves, and life.

[pastiesandpages - Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coffee Stains On My Books by Stefania Lucchetti

With illustrations by Gianluca Biscalchin

A big thank you to @stefania.lucchetti for the #gifted copy of this modern and unique poetry book.

Stefania puts it best herself in her introduction where she says 'This book is the culmination of my renewed yet enduring love affair with art.'

The poetry touches on a variety of topics from everyday life with moments of lyrical and philosophical introspection as well as influence from mythology. Several of the poems are named after figures from the myths such as Aphrodite, Ariadne, Hera, Hades, Athena and more.

What makes the book truly unique is the bilingual structure. All the poems are presented in English and Italian. It's a true celebration of art, culture and the nuance of language.

There are poems about books and art, motherhood and family, love and defining moments in life.
I completely understood what the author was saying in the longest poem 'Eve Toils In The Shadows' where she lays bare the almost impossible balance of career and family and identity.

The poetry captures the thoughts of someone who is a true writer always finding ideas and inspiration and needing to record those ideas:

'In its pages my dreams took flight and soared
My refuge, my sanctuary, ever and more
A mirror to my essence'
- from Blue Notebook

How do words come together with so much meaning and feeling and vivid imagery? It's a skill to take emotions and turn them into vignettes of life with a musicality and rhythm where each reader will take something different away from the experience.

' Art
The alchemical mystery of creativity and thought'
- from Art

A rating is almost superfluous with poetry which is so personal and subjective between author and reader but for those that like a visual representation at a glance here are ✨✨✨✨✨5 stars.

[Carrie Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully powerful collection of poetry that focuses on introspection, learning about oneself, and emotion. The poems use the poet's life, literature, and oftentimes Greek Mythology to help the messages resonate with the reader. There were many different poems which stood out to me. I highly enjoyed this collection and would love to read more of Stefania Lucchetti's poetry in the future. It was great that this is a bilingual collection with both English and Italian used side-by-side. The illustrations by Gianluca Biscalchin went along perfectly with the poems.

My favorites were:
- "Aphrodite"- I particularly love the last verse of this poem.
"But know, dear mortal, you cannot possess me
for I am wild, bold, and freedom obsessive.
I’ll vanish when your heart ceases to sing
with the authenticity true creation brings."

- "Second Class Ticket"- An absolutely beautiful poem and one of the best.

- "Coffee Stains On My Books"- The poem that the collection is named after is definitely one of my favorites. It's funny how much a stain on something so precious can tell a whole story. One that will make the owner remember something from the past.

- "Ariadne's Yarn"- Probably my favorite of the Greek Mythology poems. I love Ariadne's story from mythology and this was such a great poem.

- "Hades"- This is one of the most interesting pieces from the collection. Greek Mythology will always draw me into a story or poem. I like how she draws upon the mythology in all of these poems to write her lines of verse. Stunning!

- "Athena"- This has so many powerful lines. I love the last 6 lines of the final verse.
"Will they love the woman inside me,
or will I remain
a fallen goddess
watching my armour,
now useless,
rusting away in a corner?"

- "Penelope's Web"- Penelope is one of my favorite characters in Greek Mythology and I enjoyed this poem.

- "Blue Notebook"- I love how the last poem in the collection used the notebook she talked about at the beginning. Such a beautiful way to end this collection. As a poet/writer myself, I have many notebooks from my past that hold such significance to me.

This is a collection that I know I will read from in years to come and I highly recommend it.

*Thank you to Stefania Lucchetti for my ARC of this collection. All opinions are my own.*

[Laura Sienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning, introspective, and musically complex bilingual collection that explores the intersections of language, identity, and the sacred in the everyday. Coffee Stains On My Books is a rare treasure: a poetry collection where each poem exists as a perfectly rendered diptych in both Italian and English, offering readers two distinct but harmonizing experiences of the same emotional landscape.

Stefania Lucchetti writes with a voice that is at once vulnerable and fiercely intelligent. Her poems navigate the intimate territories of love, loss, memory, and self-discovery, weaving personal narrative with classical references to mythology and philosophy. The result is poetry that feels both timeless and intimately contemporary—a conversation between the self and the echoes of history, art, and thought.

The bilingual presentation is not a gimmick but the heart of the work. As her own translator, Lucchetti masterfully negotiates the delicate balance between musicality and meaning, allowing each language version to breathe with its own distinct rhythm while preserving the core of the poem’s emotional truth. This makes the collection a fascinating study for lovers of language and translation, and a deeply resonant read for anyone seeking poetry with emotional and intellectual depth.

Accompanied by evocative color illustrations, this is a book to savor slowly a perfect companion for quiet mornings or reflective evenings. A brilliant, layered, and beautifully crafted collection from a poet of remarkable talent.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley, and Stefania Lucchetti for providing me with an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
----------------------------------------

Coffee Stains on My Books by Stefania Lucchetti is a thoughtful and elegantly crafted bilingual poetry collection that blends everyday emotion with literary and philosophical depth. Each poem appears first in Italian and then in English, a structure that adds a unique rhythm to the reading experience. As someone who speaks some Italian, I especially enjoyed pausing to decipher the titles and meanings in Italian before reading the English versions as it made the book feel interactive and personal. Lucchetti’s writing style is graceful and expressive, weaving vivid imagery with introspective themes about memory, relationships, imagination, and the quiet moments that shape our inner lives. Many of the poems feel relatable and emotionally grounded, while the accompanying illustrations add a gentle visual layer that complements the reflective tone.

Overall, the collection earns a strong 4 stars. The writing is consistently beautiful, and the bilingual presentation enriches the experience in a way that feels both artistic and intimate. A few poems lean more abstract, which may distance some readers, but the majority resonate with clarity and emotional honesty. Coffee Stains on My Books is a warm, intelligent, and engaging collection that is especially rewarding for readers who appreciate poetry that invites them to slow down, reflect, and savor language in two forms.

[Federica 🪐 · Rating 3 out of 5]

| ARC REVIEW |

Life rarely arrives in neat lines, and neither does this poetry collection. It meets the reader in fragments—thoughts, emotions, and moments that echo the way the mind actually moves. Rather than guiding us through a clear narrative, the poems invite us into disorder, asking us to sit with uncertainty, vulnerability, and emotional intensity. Things that we usually try to avoid in the real life!

Written alongside the turbulence of lived experience, these poems explore how fragile both language and existence can be, and how easily our own thoughts turn against us. Mythological references surface throughout, not as distant symbols but as living presences, blending the mystical with the everyday until the boundary between reality and imagination dissolves.

The bilingual juxtaposition adds another layer to the reading experience (since i speak italian and have a good knowledge of english). Even if meaning is not fully understood, emotion still reaches the reader, suggesting that shared human experiences travel beyond words. In this way, the collection becomes less about comprehension and more about connection—showing how language, despite its limits, can draw our inner worlds closer together.

I can't say that I could resonate with all the poems, maybe cause of my young age, but i think that everyone should give an opportunity to this collection.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and Stefania Lucchetti for gifting me this eBook in exhange of an honest review.

[Kuu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I was very intrigued by this bilingual poetry collection and by how the bilingualism would be done inside the book, and the idea of having the poems coexist in both languages is one I really like. However, it also comes with people (me) analysing how you did the translations, and feeling a little disappointed to find that some poems included specific stylistic elements that affected how they are read in one language, but not the other (such as rhyme schemes). Still, knowing how hard of a task it is to translate poetry specifically, that was something I noted but that did not affect my rating.

I also liked that the book included illustrations, but sadly, the illustrations did not look very professional, which did negatively affect my overall impression a bit.

3.5 stars total, rounded up because the illustrations are less important than the poems.

[BrittNeedsBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been looking for a new poetry book and this one hit the spot! I really enjoyed the mythology weaved in into modern life. I also enjoyed the translations side by side, I haven't read a book like that before so it was very fun. I tried to narrow down my favorite poems but in the end each one offered something so different and distinct that if I waited on my review till I picked one I would not have gotten this review done in time!!

Thank you, Net Galley and Stefania Lucchettie for this ARC opportunity!