Salvatore Quasimodo

I have to be sure to highlight Salvatore Quasimodo [1901-1968], when I saw him in Eratio issue six, fall 2005, I was thrilled--he was translated here by Anny Ballardini. 

S. Quasimodo was a famous Italian writer who won the Nobel prize for literature--here's more info on him.

Here is a site with lots of poems by him, he's amazing. He's got a really ancient mood to his poems, but they're very spare, too. Very Modernist, Hemingway type stuff. It makes me think of Etruscan cave tombs [which are incredible if you're into tombs or art history or the Etruscans, the mystic nearby half-forbearers of the Romans]. Here are two great poems by him:

Street in Agrigentum

(Là dura un vento che ricordo acceso)     

  (real first line in Italian)

There is still the wind that I remember

firing the manes of horses, racing,

slanting, across the plains,

the wind that stains and scours the sandstone,

and the heart of gloomy columns, telamons,

overthrown in the grass. Spirit of the ancients, grey

with rancour, return on the wind,

breathe in that feather-light moss

that covers those giants, hurled down by heaven.

How alone in the space that’s still yours!

And greater, your pain, if you hear, once more,

the sound that moves, far off, towards the sea,

where Hesperus streaks the sky with morning:

the jew’s-harp vibrates

in the waggoner’s mouth

as he climbs the hill of moonlight, slow,

in the murmur of Saracen olive trees.

Note: On the southern coast of Sicily, Agrigento is the ancient

Agrigentum, or Akragas, one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia.

Imitation Of Joy

(Dove gli alberi ancora)     (real first line in Italian)

Where the trees render

the evening yet more abandoned,

how indolently

your last footstep vanishes

that appears with the flower

of the lime, and insists on its fate.

You search for reason in affection,

you experience silence in life.

Another outcome reveals to me

mirrored time. It grieves

like death, beauty now

flashes like lightning in other faces.

I have lost every innocence,

even in this voice that survives

to imitate joy.



And here's another great one by him from here:


Ancient Winter

(Desiderio delle tue mani chiare)       (real first line in Italian)

Desire of your hands bright

in the penumbra of fire:

they knew of oak-trees, roses,

death. Ancient winter.

The birds searched for seed,

and were suddenly snow;

so, the word.

A little sun, an angelic halo,

and then the mist; and trees,

and we making dawn from the air.