F. T. Marinetti (1876-1944) is widely known as the founder of Futurism, an early twentieth-century cultural revolution that began as a literary movement and expanded to influence painters, musicians, dramatists, architects, and graphic artists throughout the world. This volume, a translation of more than forty poems and prose works by Marinetti, presents premier examples of his rich poetic creations, many for the first time in English. The collection has been selected by Luce Marinetti to represent the entire span of the poet's career, and it includes works originally written in either French or Italian, Marinetti's two primary languages.
The volume begins with Marinetti's early lyrical works, poems that exemplify styles and themes that he later reacted against in his own manifestos. It continues with his poems of battle, in which Marinetti used the language of machines and explosions to express his view of poetry as reportage from the front; "Words in Freedom," in which he declared war on poetry by destroying syntax and spelling and by experimenting with typography; and finally love poems to his wife, Benedetta, in which he returned in part to subjects and forms that he had previously rejected. The volume includes a prefatory biography of Marinetti written by Luce Marinetti, as well as a critical review by Paolo Valesio of Marinetti's accomplishment as a poet.