Poetry
Tamarisks
Myricae
Giovanni Pascoli · 1891
Opening lines
Io vedo (come è questo giorno, oscuro!),
vedo nel cuore, vedo un camposanto
con un fosco cipresso alto sul muro.
I see (how dark this day is!),
I see in my heart, I see a graveyard
with a dusky cypress tall above the wall.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from it.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Short, delicate, musical poems drawn from nature and from life in the home: the humble, everyday things that poetry usually left aside, looked at one by one, with an intimate attention. Behind the simplicity of the images pass memory and sorrow, those of a childhood the poet knew to be unhappy, which gives the collection its melancholy tone.
Context
The title comes from a line of Virgil, where the “humble tamarisks” stand for modest subjects. The collection never stopped growing: according to the Treccani, the first edition, in 1891, contained twenty-two poems, gathered for a wedding, and the fifth contained one hundred and fifty-six. It is the author's first important collection, the one that founded his reputation. In English, Piero Garofalo translated it in 2024 under the title “Tamarisks”, in a bilingual edition from Italica Press.
Who it is for
Very short poems, to be read slowly and aloud: the music of the verse counts as much as the words.
Prizes and reception
According to the Britannica, the collection was very successful and left its mark on the Italian poets known as the twilight poets.
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