"Younger than Umberto Saba and Eugenio Montale but older than Pier Paolo Pasolini, who championed him, Sandro Penna has been virtually unknown in the English speaking world. With abruptness and clarity, these exquisite and sometimes disturbing lyrics come at you as if they had just been discovered, taken directly from the secret hand of the poet. In Peter Valente's extraordinary "variations" of texts dating from 1927 until Penna's death in 1977, the transmission is electric." Ammiel Alcalay Peter Valente's first encounter with Sandro Penna's poetry was while translating Pier Paolo Pasolini....