A beautiful hardcover Pocket Poets selection of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Italian poet Eugenio Montale, one of the giants of twentieth-century poetry.
Eugenio Montale (1896-1981) is not only Italy's greatest modern poet but a towering figure in twentieth-century literature. His incandescently beautiful body of work is deeply rooted in the venerable lyric tradition that began with Dante, but he brilliantly reinvents that tradition for our time, probing the depths of love, death, faith, and philosophy in the bracing light of modern history. Dynamic innovation and a coiled, fierce energy fuel the poet's quest for liberation from the self. Marked by musicality and rhythmic variety, Montale's poems manage to be buoyant with allusion and metaphor while also densely studded with things-with concrete, elemental images that keep his complex and restless musings firmly tethered to the world.
Montale's reputation is international and enduring; his widely translated work has profoundly influenced generations of poets around the world. This volume contains selections from all his greatest works, rendered into English by the accomplished poet and translator Jonathan Galassi. It serves as both an essential introduction to an important poet and a true pleasure for lovers of contemporary

Eugenio Montale; Edited by Jonathan Galassi

Introduction: Reading Montale
 
From CUTTLEFISH BONES (1920–1927)
 
On the Threshold
The Lemons
English Horn
Wind and Flags
 
from Cuttlefish Bones
“‘Don’t ask us for the word . . .”
“Sit the noon out . . .”
“I think back on your smile . . .”
“My life, I ask of you . . . “
“Bring me the sunflower . . .”
“Often I’ve met . . .”
“I know the moment when a raw grimace . . .”
“Glory of expansive noon”
“Happiness achieved . . .”
“Maybe one morning . . .”
“Your hand was trying the keyboard”
“The well’s pulley creaks . . .”
“Hoopoe, happy bird . . .”
“Above the scribbled-over wall . . .”
 
Mediterranean
“Racketing catcalls spiral down”
“Ancient one . . .”
“Sometimes, coming down . . .”
“I’ve paused at times in the caves”
“Now and then, suddenly”
“We don’t know how we’ll turn out”
“I would have liked to feel harsh and essential”
“If at least I could force”
“Dissolve if you will this frail”
 
Pool
Eclogue
Flux
Slope
Arsenio
House by the Sea
The Dead
Delta
Encounter
 
Seacoasts
 
From THE OCCASIONS (1928–1939)
 
The Balcony
Lindau
Autumn Quarries
Gerti’s Carnival
Near Capua
To Liuba, Leaving
Dora Markus
Local Train
 
Motets
“You know it: I must lose you again”
“Many years, and one still harder”
“Frost on the windowpanes . . .”
“Distant, I was with you . . .”
‘Farewells, whistling in the dark . . .”
‘The hope of even seeing you again”
‘The white-and-black sine”
“See the sign . . .”
“The green lizard . . .”
“What are you waiting for? . . .”
“The spirit that dispenses”
“I free your forehead . . . “
“The gondola that glides”
“Is it salt that strafes . . .”
“At first light . . .”
“The flower that repeats”
“The frog, first to strike his chord”
“Shears, don’t cut away that face”
“The reed that softly”
“ . . . so be it. Blare of a cornet”
 
Times at Bellosguardo
The House of the Customs Men
Low Tide
Stanzas
Summer
Correspondences
Boats on the Marne
Pico Farnese Elegy
New Stanzas
The Return
Palio
News from Mount Amiata
 
From THE STORM, ETC. (1940–1954)
 
The Storm
Promenade
Indian Serenade
The Earrings
Personae Separatae
The Ark
To My Mother
From a Tower
Ballad Written in a Hospital
Where the Tennis Court Was . . .
Visit to Fadin
On the Greve
A Metropolitan Christmas
From the Train
For an “Homage to Rimbaud”
Incantation
Iris
In the Greenhouse
The Garden
The Hitler Spring
Voice That Came with the Coots
The Magnolia’s Shadow
The Capercaillie
The Eel
“If they’ve compared you . . .”
In an Album
Anniversary
Little Testament
The Prisoner’s Dream
 
Appendix: Levantine Letter
 
Chronology
Notes
Acknowledgments