The Faber Book of 20th-century Italian Poems

Book excerpt: Italy has produced some of the most inventive and controversial poetry of the past one hundred years. In this new anthology, all the major Italian poets of the early part of the century are well represented - Montale, Ungaretti, Saba, Quasimodo and D'Annunzio among them - poets who have filtered through to the English speaking world, and are already influential and appreciated. But many of their contemporaries from the mid-century and later are far less known - and deserve to be known - and Jamie McKendrick turns the light to them as well, including the work of Sereni, Passolini, Bertolucci and many others. 20th-Century Italian Poems is a stimulating sift through the key poets and poems of this fascinating period in European literature.