About Benedetta
Benedetta Zanetti, usually known as “Benny”, is a Deaf actor coming from Northern Italy. She graduated in July 2021 from the BA Performance in BSL and English at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is now attending the MA Classical and Contemporary Text at
the RCS.
She loves writing poems and short movie scripts, along with dancing and running. She signs fluently BSL (British Sign Language) and is learning LIS (Italian Sign Language),
and speaks fluently Italian, English and some Spanish.
Her theatre credits include: Meet me in the Middle (Plug Festival,RCS), Where are you? (Theatre Sans Accents), The Dutch Courtesan (RCS), What do you see?-Short piece (The PappyShow), The Coat (RCS), The Assumption (Solar Bear/RCS) and Glory on Earth
(RCS).
Her TV credits include: Afterword (RCS short movie), Anger Management (RCS, short movie).
She also directed the short movie Outcast produced by the RCS and co-wrote the short movie Cold on Earth which was produced by the RCS too.
Instagram: @benny_zanetti
Twitter: @BenedettaZanet4
About the piece
"I wrote Remember Earth during our first global lockdown. I had just rushed back home to my parents in Italy and I remember how struck I had been by noticing how quiet and deserted my hometown was. I've always been incredibly sensitive to noise (funny, for a Deaf person!) and finally managing to sleep peacefully in my neighbourhood was a surprise to me. This was only the start of a series of reflections I made during that period when everything seemed lost and huge and difficult and yet, somehow, the planet seemed to be okay. Better now that we had stopped, even. I remember lifting my head to the sky one night when the weight of the situation seemed too heavy, and looking up at the stars I realised that Nature was still there. That we were still there. And the important thing was to be there for each other and to keep listening to our Mother Earth. Something we should do more nowadays, perhaps".
Remember Earth
by Benedetta Zanetti
“It will come and get you” said the first news
Few chose to listen that day
They watched the Tv and read the papers for a few moments
Then the baby cooed
The moka pot rumbled
The bus stopped
The laptop started
Dinner was served
And they turned away
It’s like the monster crawling under your bed in your childhood times
approaching on tiptoes,
But this time
No door squeaking
No stumping on the wooden floor
No shadow to be seen in the hallway
- ninja like paced
You’ll not see it coming
You will perhaps sense it in your hair rising
on the back of your neck
and it will grab you from behind.
So many people I’ve seen sinking into this terror
Hanging on media’s lips
Hypnotised
Repeating that doom’s day has come
Like broken dolls
Desperately looking for a safe corner to run to and hide
Like children peeing on themselves when Dad is angry
Lost and frightened
Watching trees being slaughtered
Water springs getting sucked dry
Animals being mass-clumped inside the farms
Winters becoming summers
People multiple in the blink of an eye
And starting to wonder,
shockingly realising
That we’ve suddenly all risen and lowered at the same level.
“There’s nothing left to humanity” they weep
“We’ve lost our civilisation”
Now you can take a breath.
If you look there,
Where my finger is pointing just below the horizon
You will maybe see it
If you come closer;
Can you see what’s there, amongst the clouds?
No, it’s not the city lights.
It’s not a lighthouse, nor a factory LED or a plane signal.
Something is truly sparkling, alive
-up there.
I can see them.
Tiny, sometimes weaker, sometimes braver lights
- They look like they’re drowning in the sea
But they’re not: they’re floating.
Because they are what will be here beyond memory
Fueling all known and unknown life.
Those clouds are dark,
I know
Like an omen of future hostilities
But it’s not doom’s day,
When you see people playing ukuleles on their balconies,
A clown recording a story for his children at the hospital,
A bus driver suddenly realising how quiet a city can be,
Dolphins swimming closer and closer to long forgotten coasts,
Forests stretching and rediscovering their place,
Stars shining more than ever- it looks like
Then you know it.
Remember this is Earth,
The Old Lady they call her
The Brave Warrior
She pivots in a slow dance
Like a ship on a wave
A little bent
Without getting us seasick though
She won’t stop showing us how dark we can see around us
But how greener it actually is.
Perhaps this is something we could remember
That we are her humans.
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