Three WWI poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti

Here are my adaptations of three poems by Italy foremost poet of the First Word War, Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970). They are Veglia” (Vigil), “Fratelli” (Brothers), and “Sono una creatura”(I am a creature), both in the original Italian and in English translations by Marco Sonzogni and Ross Woods. These comics are the product of an ongoing collaboration with Sonzogni and Woods, and with the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation at  Victoria University of Wellington. (click on images to enlarge)
(Adattamenti a fumetti di tre poesie della prima guerra mondiale scritte da Giuseppe Ungaretti)
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26 Responses to Three WWI poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti

  1. Roberto Amorosino says:
    November 2, 2023 at 7:34 am

    Julian: proprio oggi, 2 novembre, ho trovato questo tuoi lavori in ricordo delle parole di Ungaretti e soprattutto dei nostri soldati. Meravigliosi! Belli, intensi e veri oltre ad essere di qualità grafica straordinaria. Grazie.. e vado a leggere di più e più attenzione.

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  2. Anonymous says:
    October 31, 2023 at 9:29 am

    Ciao Julian, sono un insegnante di Italiano della scuola media Dazzi di Carrara. Vorrei chiederti il permesso di poter utilizzare le tue tavole, che rappresentano l’alienazione e l’orrore della guerra in maniera egregia, per ‘illustrare’ (letteralmente) le poesie di Ungaretti, poeta che adoro.

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    • julian peters comics says:
      October 31, 2023 at 10:26 pm

      Ma certo! Mi farebbe molto piacere. Grazie! Anch’io sono un grande fan di Ungaretti. A proposito, potrebbe interessarti sapere che ci sarà una mia “fumettizazione” della poesia “Il porto sepolto” nel prossimo numero della rivista italiana di poesia per ragazzi, “Junior Poetry Magazine”

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  3. Anonymous says:
    October 16, 2023 at 2:01 pm

    Ô combien actuel, ohime.

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  4. Tonia says:
    April 6, 2021 at 2:27 pm

    Salve, sono una docente e insegno letteratura italiana e storia in un istituto professionale, volevo dirle che i sui fumetti delle poesie di Ungaretti sono bellissimi, emozionanti, domani li proporrò ai miei studenti e alle mie studentesse, sono sicura che li apprezzeranno.

    Thanks
    Antonietta La Manna

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  5. Jennie De Meis says:
    April 2, 2021 at 11:49 am

    Che lavoro meraviglioso hai fatto. Mi vien da piangere.

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    • julian peters comics says:
      April 2, 2021 at 2:09 pm

      Grazie Jennie! Stavo pensando che sarebbe bello fare una collezione di adattamenti a fumetti di poesie italiane.

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      • Antonietta La Manna says:
        April 7, 2021 at 1:42 am

        Sarebbe bellissimo, una piccola antologia di test poetici, da Pascoli, D’Annunzio passando per Ungaretti, Saba, Quasimodo fino ai poeti cronologicamente più vicini a noi

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      • Anonymous says:
        July 11, 2023 at 2:30 am

        Anch’io insegno Letteratura e Storia, all’Istituto Tecnico “Pio La Torre” di Palermo e, casualmente, via web, mi sono imbattuto nei suoi bei fumetti sulle poesie di Ungaretti. Mi ripropongo di farli vedere ai miei alunni di quinta e sono certo che saranno un successo.
        Sarebbe bello poter acquistare, per la mia biblioteca personale, un’antologia dei suoi fumetti dei poeti italiani, quando la pubblicherà.
        Resto n attesa e…
        Complimenti per la sua idea e per l’ottimo risultato, il bianco e nero rende benissimo il contesto delle poesie di guerra di Ungaretti.

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  6. Giorgia says:
    September 9, 2020 at 4:24 pm

    Astonished. These are such impressive works! You really did justice to the beaty of Ungaretti’s poems. Thank you, from an italian abroad.

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  7. Giorgio Borroni says:
    March 10, 2020 at 1:00 pm

    Dear Mr. Peters, I teach Italian Literature and History in a Lower secondary school and I found your comics about Ungaretti. I will use ’em for my lession on line I’ll have to do tomorrow, since the schools are closed because of the Covid19. Thanks for your beautiful art. Just to let you know it will be useful too!
    Giorgio Borroni

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  8. francesca says:
    January 21, 2019 at 6:10 pm

    veramente toccanti le immagini come tra l’altro le parole di Ungaretti! ti faccio i miei complimenti

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  10. An aSTONished visitor says:
    November 4, 2016 at 11:46 am

    Just discovered ‘I am a creature’, whose lines sound universal and timeless. The gradual zoom in the drawings, along with our reading process, strengthens the dramatic effect !

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  11. Pingback: Ungaretti’s Dead Comrade Identified? – An Article by Mario Colombo | julian peters comics

  12. Adina Ruiu says:
    May 10, 2015 at 4:53 am

    I can think of a number of situations in which pre-printed postcards might look less like an expression of censorship and more like a service to communication in difficult circumstances (injuries resulting in the incapacity to write; borderline illiteracy). But the extreme limits they impose on expression (and the expression of feelings) contribute to overcharging the significance of handwriting: by letting the typewriting carry the basic information all postcards convey, the few letters scribbled on the bottom of the page become the truest vehicle of the soul and signature becomes a true incarnation of the being.

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    • julian peters comics says:
      May 10, 2015 at 7:39 am

      True, although it is terribly galling the way one’s signature acts as a personal endorsement of the coercively optimistic framework that the pre-printed postcard sets forth. It seems to me the only way of crying out one’s true desperation would be to cross out all of the lines provided. I know too that some soldiers, including Wilfred Owen, had devised a code with their loved ones based on the manner in which they crossed out certain lines.

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  13. Adina Ruiu says:
    May 6, 2015 at 7:31 am

    Beautiful and moving work, Julian! I am reading many postcards sent by French soldiers to their loved ones during “la Grande Guerre”, and this looks like a very poignant depiction of the circumstances in which they were writing… May I (in all humbleness) invite you to have a look at this related post? https://oddsandlens.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/postcard-palimpsest/

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    • julian peters comics says:
      May 7, 2015 at 6:29 pm

      Thanks Adina! The imagery does fit in well with the touching narrative you’ve so painstakingly reconstructed. It must be quite moving to read through that kind of WW1 correspondence, reading the emotion in the lines, between the lines, and in the very contours of the lines, as in your palimpsest. I recently saw some British WW1 pre-printed postcards in which soldiers were only allowed to sign their names and mark off whether they were “quite well” or specify their injuries. It made me wonder what calligraphic or other devices soldiers must have used to convey the true intensity of their feelings: https://thinkbreathesleepknit.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/postcards.jpg

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