This poem by Edoardo Sanguineti was originally published as part of the proceedings of a conference in 1982 devoted to the Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, one of the founders of modern Italian poetry, known for his innovative and musical verses rich in assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, and linguistic and metrical virtuosity.

His homage to another writer, not unusual for Sanguineti, indicates how much he honors much of the poetic tradition, despite his belonging to the neo-avantguardia. Sanguineti has written poems of homage to Catullus, Goethe, and Shakespeare and has translated and adapted many poems and plays, from the classical Greeks and Dante to Bertolt Brecht.

The dedication of Last Walk to Sanguineti’s wife and his reference to their children signal a contrast to Pascoli, who never married nor had children and was instead a father-husband figure to his younger sisters, whom he wanted to keep together in his house, his nest (nido).

Sanguineti’s poem is structured in seven sections and composed in free verse of long lines tied together loosely by interlinear rhymes, assonance, and consonance, as the first line makes clear: “ti esploro, mia carne, mio oro, corpo mio, che ti spio, mia cruda carta nuda” (I explore you, my flesh, my gold, my body, that I spy on, my crude nude paper).

Sanguineti’s linguistic wordplay draws attention to itself in a way Pascoli’s did not, and his sense of humor far exceeds the latter’s perpetual poetic sobriety. For example, the fifth section begins: “io ti farò cucù e curuccuccù, ragazza lavandarina” (I will coo for you and cuckoo for you, small laundry girl).

What comes across most clearly is the joy with which Sanguineti weaves words to celebrate his wife, “quella reginella ridarella, . . . quella raganella griderella, la bella sopranella / in sottanella, . . . quella stella bianca, stella nana, unica mia sovrana disumana . . .” (that little laughing queen, . . . that yelling little frog, the beautiful little soprano / in petticoats, that white star, dwarf star, my only inhuman sovereign).

Bibliography
Ballerini, L., B. Cavatorta, E. Coda, and P. Vangelisti, eds. The Promised Land: Italian Poetry after 1975. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 2000.
Sanguineti, Edoardo. Libretto. Translated by Padraig J. Daly. Dublin: Daedalus, 1999.
———. Natural Stories #1. Translated by Jana O’Keefe Bazzioni. Toronto: Guernica, 1998.

Categories: British Literature, Italian Literature, Literature

Tags: avant-garde poetic techniques, contemporary Italian literature, Edoardo Sanguineti biography, Edoardo Sanguineti literary criticism, Edoardo Sanguineti poetry analysis, Edoardo Sanguineti style, free verse Italian poem, Giovanni Pascoli influence, homage poetry Italian, interlinear rhyme in poetry, Italian literature studies, Last Walk by Edoardo Sanguineti summary, Last Walk character study, Last Walk criticism, Last Walk plot, Last Walk themes, Last Walk: Homage to Pascoli analysis, linguistic virtuosity in poetry, modern Italian poetry themes, neo-avant-garde Italian poetry, Pascoli poetic tradition, poetic family themes, poetic homage, poetic language analysis, poetic wordplay Sanguineti, Sanguineti and Pascoli comparison, Sanguineti Pascoli tribute, Sanguineti poem structure