Dove La Luce/Where the Light: A Selection of Poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti, 1919-1969 by Wally Swist

Full-length, Paper

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This title will be released on February 19, 2027

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Giuseppe Ungaretti received initial praise for his first book, L’Allegria, written in the trenches of WWI.  After the war, he returned to Paris, where he found friendships before the conflict, with such historical literary personages as philosopher Henri Bergson and later upon his return with Hungarian surrealist poet, Tristan Tzara, a significant meeting of minds.  He became a part of the academy in Italy but lived in Argentina, until his son’s death, and came back to Italy, in which he lived in during WWII.  His “later poems” after L’Allegria—some five decades worth—intensely address the natural world, relationships and sensuality, the difficult memories of childhood, and remnants of his searing experiences in war.  There is a sense of reading a poet worthy of being on the world stage.  Actually, Ungaretti and Nobel Laureat Eugenio Montale are often thought of as Italy’s two major poets.  Essentially, Ungaretti is an imagist, but his images are affected in a surrealist manner, uncommon in their intensity, but not without a memorable lyricism and haunting juxtaposition.  A poet’s work is sometimes described as being “lasting” in that it can be reread often.  In this, Ungaretti’s poems, and this selection of the ones which this translator thought to represent, exhibit his “lasting” work — in the tones and depths of an incisive poetry whose resonance is nothing less than being described as perpetuating.  These translations were made over a period of some five years after the translator first came upon Ungaretti’s work when he was twenty, over five decades ago.  His intent is to share how he has seen and heard Ungaretti’s poetry appear to him on the page and sounded to him in his ear.  As with all translations, it is a work of inspiration, guidance, deep reading, and devotion. #translations #poetry #Ungaretti