Variable Star (Essential Poets Series 89)

by Vittorio Sereni

Sereni (1913–1983) won the Viareggio Award for poetry in 1981. This is his last book of verse and the one containing, as the author himself underlined, his best poetry.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Vittorio Sereni (27 July 1913 - 10 February 1983) was an Italian poet, author, editor and translator of Jewish heritage. His poetry frequently addressed the themes of 20th-century Italian history, such as Fascism, Italy's military defeat in World War II, and its postwar resurgence.

Born at Luino, Sereni graduated from the University of Milan in 1936. In 1938, he co-founded the literary review Corrente di Vita. In 1941, he published Frontiera, his first collection of poetry. He was drafted into the Italian Army during World War II: captured by Allied forces in 1943, he spent the rest of the war in POW camps in Algeria and Morocco. These experiences formed the basis for his second poetry book, Diario d'Algeria.

After the war, Sereni worked as a teacher and literary critic. From the mid-1950s until his death in 1983, he was literary director of the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore publishing house. His later collections of poetry included Gli strumenti umani (1965) and Stella variabile (1981). He was a prolific translator, rendering into Italian the works of Pierre Corneille, Paul Valéry and William Carlos Williams, among others. His collection of translated poems, Il musicante di Saint-Merry, was awarded the 1982 Bagutta Prize.

Sereni's works are collected in English in The Selected Poetry and Prose of Vittorio Sereni: A Bilingual Edition (2006), translated by Marcus Perryman and Peter Robinson.

Reviews

[Davide · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paura prima

[…]. Da solo
non ce la faccio a far giustizia di me.


Paura seconda

Niente ha di spavento
la voce che chiama me
proprio me
dalla strada sotto casa
in un’ora di notte:
è un breve risveglio di vento,
una pioggia fuggiasca.
Nel dire il mio nome non enumera
i miei torti, non mi rinfaccia il passato.
Con dolcezza (Vittorio,
Vittorio) mi disarma, arma
contro me stesso me.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"E dopo tutto
ho pozzi in me abbastanza profondi
per gettarvi anche questo." (p. 15)

[Giulia✨]

Siamo passati come passano gli anni

[Claudio Maniga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carino