“I loved everything in this world. And all I had
was my blank notebook under the sun.”

Sandro Penna, the Italian poet, believed his finest work consisted of only a handful of lines.

Why write a long poem when four lines will do?

A man after my own heart.

I leave my job filled
With dry words. But at the gate
The gods have set down for my joy
A boy playing with boredom.

Penna also loved to walk—through fields and parks, but above all through the working-class districts of Rome, usually after dark.

We are left in little doubt as to what drew him there.

His friend, Pier Paolo Pasolini, knew that Penna was captivated by the same ragazzi who wandered the city’s outskirts.

The evening kidnapped
My quarreling boys
Their angel voices
Warring.
                Now they stand
In the mothering shelter of new lights
In houses across the street.

Engraved in the bright sky
The silent smudge
Of a hero on a horse

Under the first star.

Penna’s way of life, however, also caused concern.

In 1956, he brought a 14-year-old street boy, Raffaele Cedrino, to the home he shared with his mother. The boy remained part of Penna’s life, on and off, until 1970.

I saw my dark haired boy
Seated in the audience
Smoking a cigarette
He has the brightest eyes.

Penna died alone in the same house on Via della Mola dei Fiorentini in 1977.

In brief: 
Born in Perugia in 1906, Sandro Penna spent most of his life in Rome. Although he trained as an accountant, he never settled into regular employment, instead earning a living through newspaper work, proofreading, and dealing in art.

In 2014, Peter Valente described Penna’s verse as “candid, uncluttered, minimalist, and of profound lyrical intensity.” It is difficult to think of a finer summary.

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