Poems and translations

Chapter 22: IN MAY

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About This Book

The collection gathers lyric and ballad-like poems that portray rural landscapes, local speech, and vivid characters through dark humor, elegy, and plainspoken lyricism; many pieces are concise narratives or monologues about love, death, loss, and social life, while others register mythic or meditative moods. A substantial section offers translations and adaptations from Petrarch, Villon, Leopardi, and medieval lyricists, varying between literal and free renderings. A prefatory essay frames the poet's interest in mixing exalted feeling with the material of ordinary life. The sequence balances songful rhythms with austere images and an abrupt, colloquial voice.

IN MAY

In a nook

That opened south,

You and I

Lay mouth to mouth.

A snowy gull

And sooty daw

Came and looked

With many a caw;

“Such,” I said,

“Are I and you,

When you’ve kissed me

Black and blue!”