This piece is part of our Fall 2019 print issue.
Translated from Italian by Richard Jackson
Cesare Pavese was one of the most important poets, novelists, translators and essayists of the mid twentieth century in Italy who has been gaining international renown. Highly influenced by American Literature (he wrote his dissertation on Whitman), he was born in 1908 and committed suicide in 1950 in Turin near his home town, the same year he won the Strega Prize for his novel Tre romanze. The poem here is from his book of poems Lavore Stanca (Hard Labor) and reveals the realistic style of all his writings, an influence of Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson.
Richard Jackson has published twenty five books including fifteen books of poems, most recently Broken Horizons (Press 53, 2018) His own poems have been translated into seventeen languages including Worlds Apart: Selected Poems in Slovene. He was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal for literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans by the President of Slovenia for his work with the Slovene-based Peace and Sarajevo Committees of PEN International. He has received Guggenheim, NEA, NEH, and two Witter-Bynner fellowships, five Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Best American Poems ‘97 as well as many other anthologies. In 2009 he won the AWP George Garret Award for teaching and writing.
