Il rumore dell’alba 

Sandro Penna

.

Come è forte il rumore dell’alba!

Fatto di cose piú che di persone.

Lo precede talvolta un fischio breve,

una voce che lieta sfida il giorno.

Ma poi nella città tutto è sommerso.

E la mia stella è quella stella scialba

mia lenta morte senza disperazione.

The sound of dawn

Sandro Penna

.

How loud the sound of the dawn is!

Made up of things more than it is of people.

Sometimes it’s preceded by a brief cry,

a voice that happily taunts the day.

But then in the city everything is submerged.

And my star is that sallow star

my death slow without desperation.

.

Translation ©Matilda Colarossi

Sandro Penna (1906-1977) was a man without a real profession, an example of liberty and independence; and this is reflected in his work. “In the loud interval between early and modern Italian poets (we can, we can make this distinction: others have already spoken about the generation of poets in and around the 1890s, and those of the 1910s and 1920s), an interval filled with technical expedients, but somewhat lacking in authentic poetry, the name of Penna is destined to stay.” Piero Bigongiari, from Paragone, October 1950.

The poem Il rumore dell’alba is from the collection Poesie, Milano, Garzanti.

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