from The Night Fountain (Selected uncollected poems)
Primroses
Blood clots hanging over torn green velvet.
Ah, the wounds of the fields!
Spring has broken the veins of swollen breasts
breathing in deep the sweet air.
Wind gusts with eager lips. A kiss!
And the blood-red primroses float
on the waves without stirring.
Salvatore Quasimodo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959. This year is the centenary of his birth in Sicily in 1901, and the translations here are dedicated ‘in memory of Salvatore and for Alessandro’ (his son).
Gerald Dawe is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Morning Train (1999). He has also published Stray Dogs and Dark Horses: Selected Essays (2000). He teaches at Trinity College Dublin.
The poems here are selected from the section Poesie disperse in Poesie e discorsi sulla poesia di Salvatore Quasimodo, edited and introduced by Gilberto Finzi, with a preface by Carlo Bo (Mondadori; Milan, 1973).
Gerald Dawe is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The Morning Train (1999). He has also published Stray Dogs and Dark Horses: Selected Essays (2000). He teaches at Trinity College Dublin.
The poems here are selected from the section Poesie disperse in Poesie e discorsi sulla poesia di Salvatore Quasimodo, edited and introduced by Gilberto Finzi, with a preface by Carlo Bo (Mondadori; Milan, 1973).
Translated by Marco Sonzogni, Gerald Dawe
Page(s) 148
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The