Piero Jahier: Mio popolo / My people

Mio popolo

Piero Jahier

Eh! Eh! ragazzi, la vita
non è poi tanto preziosa!
Biglietto d’ingresso pagato:
arginare, scassare, murare
fucinare, fresare, montare…
Combattuto col piccone;
mai perso callo alla mano.
Ferite: due dita in meno.
Nostro letto abituati a portarlo lontano.

Eh! Eh! ragazzi, la vita
non è poi tanto preziosa
sentite le condizioni:
tribolare, emigrare, ammalare
ospedali, camorre, prigioni.
Ehi, ragazzi, la guerra, sapete,
non è poi tanto cattiva.
Almeno nelle antiche storie
alla fine si moriva.

Quanto alla nostra grande patria
la nostra parte di terra nativa
nel sacco, spatriando, c’è sempre entrata.
A spalla è tanto che la portiamo
nello zaino non la perderemo.
Noi dalla guerra di tutti i giorni
quando ci leviamo
un momento a cambiar le armi
e marciamo.

My people[1]

Piero Jahier

Eh! Eh! lads, life
is not that precious after all!
Admission fee paid:
stem, wreck, wall
forge, mill, assemble…
Fought with the pickaxe;
never lost a callus on a hand.
Wounds: two missing fingers.
Our bed we’re used to carting afar.

Eh! Eh! lads, life
is not that precious after all
given the conditions:
tribulate, emigrate, deteriorate
hospitals, crime, prisons.
Eh, lads, war, you know,
is not that bad after all.
At least in those ancient tales
in the end you died.

And as for our great nation
our share of native soil
in the pack, when deploying, has always fit.
We’ve been carrying it for some time on our back
in our rucksack it won’t get lost.
We from our daily war
when we get up
time enough to switch weapons
and on we march.

Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2025

[1] soldiers.

I tend to pick the poems I translate according to the way I feel. If I reread my past translations here on the blog, I know exactly how I was feeling and why.

Today is no different. I can’t watch the news, and yet I can’t not watch it. Such a sad state of affairs everywhere I look. Not to be trite, but the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; indifference is sickening and empathy hurts…And, of course, war. Everywhere war: the biggest money-making enterprise ever, and who cares how many die in the process.

Piero Jahier published this poem in the Futurist journal “Lacerba” in 1914. It would later make its way into his collection of poems Poesie in 1964. The expression is somewhere between poetry and prose: prose in his speechlike style, simple and direct, and his attention to and respect for the everyday, material life of man in war.

For further reading: https://www.studivaldesi.org/filemanager/pdf/piero-jahier-uno-scrittore-protestante.pdf

Painting: CHRISTOPHER RICHARD WYNNE NEVINSON, A.R.A., A DAWN, 1914.

[1] His soldiers.