Selected Poems

by Attilio Bertolucci, Charles Tomlinson (Translator)

Attilio Bertolucci was one of Italy's greatest modern poets. This book is the first English edition of his poetry. His translator Charles Tomlinson was known internationally as one of the most distinguished modern English his poems were described by Hugh Kenner as 'among the best in the English language in this century'. Born in 1911, Attilio Bertolucci published his first book of poems at the age of 18. His second, published in 1934, was recognised and favourably reviewed by Eugenio Montale. There followed a period of silence, broken in 1951 by The Indian Wigwam, which won the Viareggio Prize. He published two other books in the early 50s, but no more poetry until Winter Journey in 1971, his most boldly experimental as well as his most mature book. He also published two bestselling volumes of a novel in verse, La camera da letto, a kind of family history about his parents and childhood, and his love for Ninetta, the mother of Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci, his two film-director sons. A frequent cause of pleasure and also disquiet in Bertolucci's poetry is his sense of time, the calm fire of the days. The critic Paolo Lagazzi speaks of Bertolucci, although slowly bleeding to death because wounded by time, as also drawing from time 'all the gifts, colours, sweetnesses still possible - while darkness and winter advance without truce'. Italian-English bilingual edition.

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Attilio Bertolucci (18 November 1911 – 14 June 2000) was an Italian poet and writer. He is father to film directors Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Bertolucci was born at San Lazzaro (province of Parma), to a family of agricultural bourgeoisie of northern Italy. He began to write poems very early. In 1928 he collaborated to the Gazzetta di Parma, where his friend Cesare Zavattini was editor-in-chief. The following year Bertolucci published his first poetical collection, Sirio.

In 1931 he started his studies of law in the University of Parma, which however he left soon in favour of artistical and literary studies. In the following year his work Fuochi di Novembre gained him the praise of Italian poets like Eugenio Montale.

In 1951 he moved to Rome. His marriage with Ninetta Giovanardi had given him two sons, Bernardo (1940-2018) and Giuseppe (1947-2012), both future film directors. In 1951 he also published La capanna indiana and won the Viareggio Prize for literature. In this period he cemented a friendship with Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Viaggio d'inverno ("Winter Voyage") of 1971 is one of Bertolucci's finest works. This work saw a noteworthy change of style in Bertolucci's poetry: while the first works were, according to Franco Fortini, characterized by "the choice of a humble language for pastoral situations", his works were more complex and marked by unsureness feelings. From 1975, together with Enzo Siciliano and Alberto Moravia he directed the literary review Nuovi Argomenti. He won another Viareggio Prize for the narrative poem Camera da letto (1984–1988).

His last work was La lucertola di Casarola (1997), a collection of works from his youth and other unpublished poems.

Bertolucci died in Rome in 2000.