Ungaretti is a poet who should be continually revived. His fortune and misfortune at the same time is his presence in the school curricula. This way we all know who he is but at the same time we consider him 'a school affair'. Of course, if his alternative was to end up like very talented but unknown twentieth-century poets - such as Sereni or Luzi - it was better this way.
But Ungaretti should be remembered by every Italian. He sings the blood that flowed in the war bed to dig up an Italian identity that is still very immature.
Ungaretti and the Nobel
They didn't give him the Nobel out of spite, or a complaint about his lack of anti-fascism. But he deserved it all right.
Its relevance also lies in the immortal memory of what has been. When we enjoy a quiet walk in a city center, when we complain about some service not working, when we find a reason to smile we should remember Ungaretti and feel lucky.
Because he sang in an exemplary way that universe that erupts from the bowels of humanity and shows us how the dark that we ignore can suddenly make everything darkly desperate.
And here, despite the ashes of the pain of a soldier, the embers of an identity of a people desperately trying to give themselves 'we' are reborn.
In particular, this poem, entitled 'Italy' itself, captures all the contradictions and desperation of those who find themselves at the front to dissolve the knots and contradictions of politics with violence. Penultimate of Porto buried, together with Poesia (later Commiato) this lyric closes the collection.
Italy
I am a poet
a unanimous cry
I'm a lump of dreams
I am a fruit
of innumerable contrasts of grafts
ripened in a greenhouse
But your people are good
from the same land
that brings me
Italy
And in this uniform
of your soldier
I rest
as if it were the cradle
my father's
(Locvizza, 1916st October XNUMX).
Reference edition: Giuseppe Ungaretti, Life of a man. All poems, Mondadori, Milan 1969.
