My Poems Won't Change the World

''Two hours ago I fell in love
and trembled, and tremble still,
and haven''t a clue whom I should tell''

From one of the truly singular and beloved poets of contemporary Italy, these are poems of the self, the body, pasta, cats, the city and - always, and above all - love. This volume is the first substantial gathering of the best of Patrizia Cavalli''s work from her first six collections, from 1974 to 2006, translated by a selection of renowned poets. By turns thoughtful and sly, sensual and comic, charismatic and profound, these are works perfectly attuned to the pleasures and pains of everyday life and love.

''The most intensely ethical poetry in Italian literature of the twentieth century'' Giorgio Agamben

''Amazingly fresh and surprising. The world does change, in the telling'' John Ashbery

Edited by Gini Alhadeff