Italian Poetry

Written by: Italian Poetry
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  • Summary

  • This podcast is dedicated to English speakers who would like to know more about Italian Poetry, but don’t speak Italian.

    You can hear a summary of each poem in English, then the original in Italian, and you can also follow along on our website, where you’ll find resources to help find your way across languages.
    © 2024 Italian Poetry
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Episodes
  • Caro luogo, by Umberto Saba

    Caro luogo, by Umberto Saba
    Nov 16 2024

    Today we read Caro luogo, by Umberto Saba.

    Two young lovers are looking for a place where they can “make one life out of two.” All the afternoon they wander around under the sun, surrounded by the noise and the comings and goings of adult, everyday life.

    But then the night comes, the moon rises, and they find a quiet spot, where the only noise if that of crickets. And here the poem stops and the poet falls silent, presumably intent in better things than writing poetry.

    Saba was an admirer of Tasso, and this poem might remind us of this sonnet of his.

    The original:

    Vagammo tutto il pomeriggio in cerca
    d’un luogo a fare di due vite una.

    Rumorosa la vita, adulta, ostile,
    minacciava la nostra giovinezza.

    Ma qui giunti ove ancor cantano i grilli,
    quanto silenzio sotto questa luna.\ The music in this episode is Tomaso Antonio Vitali’s Chaconne in G Minor for Violin and Piano played by Angelo Xiang Yu and Dina Vainshtein (in the creative commons music collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum).
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    1 min
  • L'orologio da rote, by Ciro di Pers

    L'orologio da rote, by Ciro di Pers
    Nov 2 2024

    Today we read L’orologio da rote, by Ciro di Pers.

    Complaining about technology is not something modern. So while today we blame social media for decline in mental health and ai for stealing jobs and possibly killing everybody (and I’m not saying I disagree…), back in the 1600s one would complain about… clocks.

    Channeling something of a pre-Marxist sensibility, Ciro da Pers sees in mechanical clocks, and in particular in their relentless regularity, a tool that violently cuts up the days, and a stark reminder of the passage of time.

    When he hears its tolling he is urged to act, before his allotted time expires.

    The concluding terzina is particularly striking. Ciro states that, in a sense, the clock is the cause of time running on; and that when it strikes its bell, it’s actually knocking on our tomb, so that it opens to receive us.

    The original:

    Mobile ordigno di dentate rote
    lacera il giorno e lo divide in ore,
    ed ha scritto di fuor con fosche note
    a chi legger le sa: Sempre si more.
    Mentre il metallo concavo percuote,
    voce funesta mi risuona al core;
    né del fato spiegar meglio si puote
    che con voce di bronzo il rio tenore.
    Perch’io non speri mai riposo o pace,
    questo, che sembra in un timpano e tromba,
    mi sfida ognor contro all’età vorace.
    E con que’ colpi onde ’l metal rimbomba,
    affretta il corso al secolo fugace,
    e perché s’apra, ognor picchia alla tomba.\ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Oboes in A minor, RV 536 — I. Allegro, by The Modena Chamber Orchestra (under creative commons from musopen).
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    2 mins
  • Ed è subito sera, by Salvatore Quasimodo

    Ed è subito sera, by Salvatore Quasimodo
    Oct 20 2024

    Today we read Ed è subito sera, by Salvatore Quasimodo.

    How do you put the whole of human existence in three verses? Well, this is one way.

    Are you an uncharitable reader who isn’t impressed by Quasimodo’s Nobel Prize and would quip “I could also write three lines without even a rhyme”? You then might also maintain that this poem is a fancy way to put the saying “life sucks and then you die.”

    But of course there’s more than meets the eye, even just at the technical level. The verses are a double senario, a novenario and a settenario, of descending length as life ends its course.

    The endwords of the lines are “Earth”, “Sun” and “evening,” moving from the everyday, to the possibility of something higher, to death.

    The original:

    Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra,
    trafitto da un raggio di sole:
    ed è subito sera.\ The music in this episode is Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Cellos in G minor, RV 531, played by New Trinity Baroque (under Creative Commons).
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    2 mins

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