As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner-Italian Poets   

Italian War Poetry

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Attacking Bersaglieri

Contributed by Michael E. Hanlon (medwardh@hotmail.com)

See also: The Sonnets of John Allan Wyeth German War Poetry

Contributed by Michael E. Hanlon. Mike is Website Editor for the ø The Great War Society. He has written extensively on the Great War and guided tours of the Western Front. Annotations and biographical sketches have been contributed by Michael E. Hanlon. The translations are from the PENGUIN BOOK OF WORLD WAR I POETRY edited by Jon Silkin.

GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI, 1888-1970 A literary minimalist, Giuseepe Ungaretti is considered by some critics the greatest Italian poet of the 20th Century. He served an infantryman on the lower Isonzo front with the 3rd Army from 1915 until early 1918. In the spring, he was transferred to the Western Front where Italian forces fought with distinction. In his most famous war poem, RIVERS, he alludes to his birth in Egypt, his youth in Tuscany and his service on both fronts during the Great War. Ungaretti's pure style was achieved by condensation to essentials and is in the tradition of the French Symbolists. His works are collected in the 2 volumes of LIFE OF A MAN portions of which are available in English translation. VIGIL A whole night long crouched close to one of our men butchered with his clenched mouth grinning at the full moon with the congestion of his hands thrust right into my silence I've written letters filled with love I have never been so coupled to life Cima Quattro, 23-Dec-1915 BROTHERS What regiment d'you belong to brothers? Word shaking in the night Leaf barely born In the simmering air involuntary revolt of the man present at his brittleness Brothers Mariano, 11-Jul-1916 I AM A CREATURE Like this stone of San Michele as cold as hard as thoroughly dried as refractory as deprived of spirit Like this stone is my weeping that can't be seen Living discounts death Valloncello di Cima Quattro, 5-Aug-1916 SAN MARTINO DEL CARSO Of these houses nothing but fragments of memory Of all who would talk with me not one remains But in my heart no one's cross is missing My heart is the most tormented country of all Valloncello dell' Albergo Isolato, 27-Aug-1916 ITALY I am a poet, a unanimous cry, am a cleat of dreams a fruit of innumerable conflicting grafts ripened in the hothouse But the same earth bears your people as carries me Italy In this, the uniform of your soldier, I rest as if it were the cradle of my father Cease murdering the dead. If you hope not to perish, if you Want sound of them again, Stop crying out, cease The crying out of it. They have a barely heard whispering, No more than the increase of grass, Happy where no man passes. RIVERS This mutilated tree gives Me support, left in this pot-hole It has the bitterness of a circus Before or after the show. I watch The quiet passage of Clouds over the moon. This morning I stretched Myself in an urn of water, Like a relic, and rested. The Isonzo scoured Me like One of its stones. I pulled my four limbs together, And went, like an acrobat, Over the water. Crouched by my clothes Fouled with war, I inclined My head, like a Bedouin, To receive the sun. This is the Isonzo. And it is there I Most see myself In the universe A compliant Thread. My pain is When I do not believe Myself in harmony. But those hidden Hands give as they knead me A rare joy. I have relived The stages of my life. The Serchio: from Which have drawn, perhaps For two thousand years My country people, my father, My mother. This is the Nile That has seen me be born, And grow And burn in ignorance on Extending plains. This is the Seine; and I mingled In that muddiness learning each Part of all myself. These are my rivers confluent In the Isonzo. This is my nostalgia That in each One shines through me, now It is night, and my life seems A budding Off of shades.