Distributed for Oberlin College Press
Selected Poems
Montale’s poems range from daily life through history and myth, and on to questions of metaphysics and divinity. As a love poet, a landscape poet, and a spiritual pilgrim he has few equals. Translators Galassi, Wright, and Young recreate the distinctive music of a poet whose poems prove rich and compelling to an ever-growing body of readers.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION • from CUTTLEFISH BONES (OSSI DI SEPPIA), 1920-27 • At the Threshold • The Lemons • Falsetto • Almost a Fantasia • Wind and Flags • Don’t Ask Us for the Word • To Spend the Afternoon • I Think about Your Smile • Bring Me the Sunflower • Again and Again I Have Seen Life’s Evil • Glory of Expanded Noon • Maybe One Morning • The Well’s Pulley Creaks • Mediterranean • Arsenio • House by the Sea • The Dead • Delta • from OCCASIONS (LE OCCASIONI), 1928-39 • The Balcony • Lindau • Bagni di Lucca • Another Moon Effect • Near Vienna • To Liuba, Leaving • Dora Markus • Motets • The Customs Hut • Low Tide • Summer • Eastbourne • Boats on the Marne • News from Mount Amiata • from THE STORM & OTHER POEMS (LA BUFERA E ALTRO), 1940-54 • The Storm • Seaside Walk • On a Letter Never Written • In Sleep • Indian Serenade • Fiesole Window • The Red Lily • To My Mother • Florentine Madrigals • Ballad Written in a Clinic • Two in the Twilight • Where the Tennis Court Was... • Visit to Fadin • Towards Siena • On the Greve • The Black Trout • Towards Finisterre • Syria • Winter Light • Iris • In the Greenhouse • In the Park • The Kitchen Garden • Beach at Versilia • Hitler Spring • Voice That Came with the Coots • The Eel • Three Private Madrigals • Anniversary • Little Testament • The Prisoner’s Dream • from SATURA, 1962-70 • Xenia, I • Xenia, II • La Belle Dame Sans Merci • After a Flight • Down There • from ALTRI VERSI E POESIE DISPERSE (OTHERWISE), 1981 • Near Tellaro • I Have Such Faith in You • My Insomnia • A Malady • I Don’t Have Much Faith • It Doesn’t Take a Long Time • NOTES