Vincenzo Cardarelli (pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli, 1887-1959) journalist, poet, and literary critic, led a solitary, dignified existence, from a humble background, through self-taught education and innumerable peregrinations, until his final days in poverty and loneliness. He stood and sought for all that a true artist and intellectual has to stand and seek for: the uncompromising authenticity of art. Until now, with the sole exception of a few poems translated by the great Irish poet Desmond O'Grady in the late 1950's, the work of Vincenzo Cardarelli had remained precluded to the English speaking world and the international audience at large. The publication of this extensive collection will finally disclose the doors to one of the most prominent, yet still relatively unexplored, Italian and European poet of the twentieth century.

Vincenzo Cardarelli (pseudonym of Nazareno Caldarelli, 1887-1959) journalist, poet, and literary critic, led a solitary, dignified existence, from a humble background, through self-taught education and innumerable peregrinations, until his final days in poverty and loneliness. He stood and sought for all that a true artist and intellectual has to stand and seek for: the uncompromising authenticity of art. Until now, with the sole exception of a few poems translated by the great Irish poet Desmond O'Grady in the late 1950's, the work of Vincenzo Cardarelli had remained precluded to the English speaking world and the international audience at large. The publication of this extensive collection will finally disclose the doors to one of the most prominent, yet still relatively unexplored, Italian and European poet of the twentieth century.

Like a pilgrim, or a spiritual vagrant, crisscrossing the country-always rolling on the very fabric of the continent: westwards and eastwards, to the eternal oceans, and from the northern vast plains down through the Appalachian, to the deep recesses of the lowlands, to the swamps-infallibly enough I would always return to my dwelling in Princeton. Many a time the lonely night was devoted to the contemplation of the moon of New Jersey, as I licked the wounds of a sore soul. I always wondered, how different that pale, ghostly circle of a moon was, from the one I encountered elsewhere above the magnificent land that I had been scampering about, and from the lost moon of my childhood. Yet, with adulthood-or maturity-seeing at last the rise and fall of earthling matters, I would flinch, my heart recoiling, as from something unpleasant. Thus, through the jaundiced, estranged buoy in the sky, I would recall past memories, and hold out my quivering hand to reach over to the always-receding mysteries of existence.