Italian poetry of the last century is far from homogeneous: genres and movements have often been at odds with one another, engaging the economic, political, and social tensions of post-Unification Italy. The thirty-eight poets in this anthology, some of whose poems are translated here for the first time, represent this literary diversity and competition: they include symbolists (Gabriele D'Annunzio), free-verse satirists (Gian Pietro Lucini), hermetic poets (Salvatore Quasimodo), feminist poets (Sibilla Aleramo), twilight poets (Sergio Corazzini), fragmentists (Camillo Sbarbaro), new lyricists (Eugenio Montale), neo-avant-gardists (Alfredo Giuliani), and neorealists (Pier Paolo Pasolini).

Poets in the volume: Sibilla Aleramo, Carlo Betocchi, Dino Campana, Cristina Campo, Giorgio Caproni, Vincenzo Cardarelli, Sergio Corazzini, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Milo De Angelis, Luigi Fontanella, Franco Fortini, Alfredo Giuliani, Corrado Govoni, Guido Gozzano, Amalia Guglielminetti, Giorgio Guglielmino, Gian Pietro Lucini, Mario Luzi, Valerio Magrelli, Anna Malfaiera, Fausto Maria Martini, Eugenio Montale, Arturo Onofri, Aldo Palazzeschi, Alfredo de Palchi, Giovanni Pascoli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sandro Penna, Antonia Pozzi, Salvatore Quasimodo, Amelia Rosselli, Umberto Saba, Roberto Sanesi, Edoardo Sanguineti, Camillo Sbarbaro, Maria Luisa Spaziani, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Andrea Zanzotto