Sensual and glimmering, Lorenzo Chiera s elliptical fragments evoke nights of bawdy excess in Trastevere ( City made of Roman ruins . . . / what a whorehouse ), translated here by one of the most renowned poets of our time.

In his preface, Lawrence Ferlinghetti describes the experience of reading Chiera for the first time: We soon realize we are in the presence of a savage erotic consciousness, as if the lust-driven senses were suddenly awakened out of a hoary sleep of a thousand years, a youth shaken awake by a rude medieval hand, senses still reeling, drunk in the hold of some...