Oberlin College Press

Eugenio Montale

THE STORM & OTHER POEMS (translated by Charles Wright)

Paper $14.95 (ISBN 0-932440-01-0)

One of the greatest single collections of poetry of the twentieth century, Nobel Prize-winner Eugenio Montale's gathering of his work from 1940 to 1956 was first translated in its entirety by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright. The inaugural volume in the FIELD Translation Series, The Storm & Other Poems won the distinguished PEN Translation Award for 1978.

Charles Wright is also the translator of Dino Campana's Orphic Songs, co-translator of Montale's Selected Poems, and the subject of High Lonesome.

IN THE GREENHOUSE

The lemon bushes overflowed
with the patter of mole paws,
the scythe shined
in its rosary of cautious water drops.

A dot, a ladybug,
ignited upon the quince berries
as the snort of a rearing pony broke through,
bored with his rub-down--then the dream took over.

Kidnapped, and weightless, I was drenched
with you, your outline
was my hidden breath, your face
merged with my face, and the dark

idea of God descended
upon the living few, amid heavenly
sounds, amid childish drums,
amid suspended globes of lightning

upon me, upon you, and over the lemons...

--Eugenio Montale
translated by Charles Wright

Copyright c 1978 by Oberlin College. May not be reproduced without permission.