Brief Homage to Pluto and Other Poems

"Pusterla is a contemporary Swiss poet who writes in Italian. This volume is a selection from Pusterla's six most recent books of poetry, published in Italian. The poems create a solid sense of place-mountains, lakes, streams, villages, occasionally a city. They move from precise and delicate observations of creatures, plants, and atmosphere to harshly historical and sociological pieces, wounded by Italy's past and present. They find striking and unpredictable ways into their subjects, often ending on a surprising, crystallized image. And, in the series editors' words, "the translations compel throughout- through their cadence, pacing, assonance, and tactful alliteration-their texture and their touch. The effect of the whole-of the supple verse renderings and the prose poetry- is of lively variety in theme, point of view, and form, and Pusterla/Schutt in this manuscript emerges as an authentic, original, passionate albeit subtle voice.""--