Air and Memory

After World War II dialect poetry became widespread in Italy, with the Milanese poet Franco Loi being one of its most prominent and masterful practitioners. In the 1970s, a leading critic called Loi "the most powerful poetic personality of recent years," and since then Loi has been considered one of the most distinguished living Italian poets.
The present volume, the first full length collection of Loi's work to appear in English, has been translated and edited by Andrew Frisardi and provides a selection of Loi's shorter lyrical poems, drawn from the full span of his career, as well as an in-depth interview with Loi in which he discusses poetry, religion, politics, writing in dialect, and the shaping experience of living through wartime Milan.