Complete Poems

A career in verse that moves from Sicilian hermetic imagery through the devastation of war to a late style of hard-won clarity. Complete Poems is the best way to experience the full arc of Quasimodo’s vision.

Why Start Here

A collected edition lets you see both phases of his work and understand why the Nobel committee cited his “lyrical poetry which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times.” His early poems, dense, strange, rooted in ancient Sicily, are beautiful in isolation. But they become richer once you see how the war cracked them open and what poured out.

The famous short poems from the 1940s, “Man of My Time,” “And Suddenly It’s Evening”, are among the most anthologised Italian poems of the century. They are the place where most readers fall in love with his work, and a collected volume ensures you reach them in context.

What to Expect

Two distinct styles under one cover. The early hermetic poems are compressed and allusive, requiring patience. The war and post-war poems are stark and direct, often devastating in their brevity. A bilingual edition is strongly recommended, his Italian sound is inseparable from the meaning.