The New Italian Poetry, 1945 to the Present

Book excerpt: Postwar Italian poetry carries on the legacy of one of the world's richest literary traditions, a tradition in which conflict and diversity are important parts. It is a poetry that reflects, with extraordinary intensity, the social, psychological, and moral turmoil of the modern world. Substantial selections fromt ehw orks of twenty-one of Italy's most influential contemporary poets make up this anthology, which will make this largely unknown poetic territory more familiar to the English-speaking world. The introductory essay discusses the unique Italian talent for fusing cultural and political struggle into literary form and Italian poetry's important impact on developments in European poetry throughout the twentieth century. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.