Hard Labor by Cesare Pavese.

This collection of poems is important for two reasons. First, in its conversational rhythms, the book is an attempt by Pavese to construct a realistic, twentieth century Italian poetic language rich in narrative detail and colloquial spontaneity. His indebtedness to American literature, and to Whitman in particular, is evident both in the spirit and structure of the collection. In an early appreciative essay on Whitman, Pavese declared that the American poet was the first to “see things with a virgin eye.” Whitman was the poet who comprehended the world in his own being. For Pavese, the vignettes of Leaves of Grass are not separate entities, but part of the all-embracing understanding.