Giuseppe Ungaretti

Giuseppe Ungaretti was born in 1888 in Alexandria, Egypt from Italian parents. In 1912 he moved to Paris, where he studied for a few years, without however getting a degree, and in 1914 he joined the Italian army. He fought in the Great War and his traumatic experiences there shaped his most famous work of poetry, L'allegria[?] (Mirth). In the poems of this collection he explores pain, the sufferings of war with great delicacy and beauty. One of his most famous poems is called "Soldati" (Soldiers):

Soldati

Si sta come
d'autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie

Soldiers

One is as
on trees
of autumn
the leaves

He continued to write for the rest of his life, dying in Milan in 1970.