Poetry
The Collected Poems of Lucio Piccolo
Plumelia
Lucio Piccolo · 1967
Synopsis
A short collection whose title is the name of a flower. Nature, humanised, is its first character: the flower of the title, left to drought, wind and the passing of the seasons, becomes a meditation on resistance and metamorphosis. The poems play constantly with light and shadow, speak of the wearing down of time and the persistence of a fleeting beauty, in the author's Sicily.
Context
The collection appeared in Milan in 1967 from Scheiwiller, in the series “All'insegna del Pesce d'Oro”, in one thousand numbered copies. It was his third book, after two collections published in 1956 and 1960. Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann translated its poems into English, together with those of the other collections, in “The Collected Poems of Lucio Piccolo”, published by Princeton University Press and reissued in 2016.
Who it is for
A very short collection, of about fifty pages, meant to be reread rather than skimmed in one go.
Prizes and reception
According to LetteratitudineNews, the poet discovered by Montale was afterwards unjustly forgotten, eclipsed by the success of his cousin's novel.
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