Dino Campana, one of Italy’s greatest poets, immortalized the spirit of workers in his masterpiece Song of the Worker Italo-Francese. This essay reflects on his enduring legacy, the author’s encounter with his work, Italy’s cultural beauty, and a sharp call for Japanese intellectuals and media to rediscover the voices of laborers and regions beyond Tokyo.

On August 21, 2010, the author introduces the Italian poet Dino Campana’s “Song of the Italo-French Worker,” encountered over 30 years prior, and expresses his profound admiration. Through the poem’s spirit of labor and deep affection for Italy, the author strongly urges Japan’s Tokyo-centric TV stations to decentralize to regional areas and focus on portraying the hearts of laborers. This essay re-examines the true role of intellectuals.

Dino Campana
August 21, 2010

Dino Campana was one of Italy’s great poets.

I first encountered him more than 30 years ago.
I believed that unless I knew what kind of poets were living in the world, I could never truly understand the world itself.

It was from Chikuma Shobō, I think… a small black box set, perhaps two volumes, titled Anthology of Contemporary World Poets. I bought it and immersed myself in it.

Like bursting fireworks, there were marvelous poets from Spain, Sweden, and many other places.
Poems like jewels, radiant and unforgettable.

Among them, the one who captured my heart most deeply was the poet of today’s subject, Dino Campana.

Twenty-five years ago, by chance, I opened a branch office in Rome. Now it has long been closed, but even so, I still think it was worth it just to have established a base in that country.

Of all his poems, the one I consider unsurpassed is Song of the Worker Italo-Francese (translated by Sachiko Ōzora).

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Like a steel tower
Within the scorched heart of twilight
My spirit rises again
For the sake of a silent kiss.

If that were a saffron-colored garden
If that were an endless elegy
On the peaks of the Alps
Might there not be fragments of poor Italian labor?
Perhaps among the poplars.
At the edge of eyes burned by twilight
If the image of a shepherd girl were to appear
For some reason the tower would fade away.

Oh glitter of severed poplars.
Like a steel tower
Within the scorched heart of twilight
My spirit rises again
For the sake of an endless kiss.

Italy

With boundless sorrow I love you
Oh fragments of the heart’s radiance
Your labor dyed in the light of the mountain peaks
You carved paths through the mountains
With a few songs and much wine.
You reached to the red cloak of the stars
And silently came to my side
So deep you were hidden
That even from foreign soil
The response could be heard.

Italy

I cannot abandon you
Oh fragments of heartless Italian spirit
Believe me, we shall take pride in you
Like a fresh virgin.

Like a steel tower
Within the scorched heart of twilight
My spirit rises again
For the sake of an endless kiss.

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To me, there is no poem greater than this.

Because his poetry exists, I love Italy three times more than I otherwise would—the beautiful, splendid country of Italy, the land of the Eternal City, Rome.

And so now I wish that the six television companies crowded into the narrow region of Tokyo would disperse immediately to Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Chūbu, Kansai, Chūgoku, Kyūshū, and Shikoku.

I want them to find and portray, in the mountains, forests, and seas, the fragments of soul and spirit of the workers long oppressed in Japan.

Their movement alone would immediately lead to the prosperity of these regions.

Apart from this, what else should so-called “intellectuals”—who like to think of themselves as not laborers—really be doing?

In truth, intellectuals exist for the happiness of the workers. Or rather, they exist only because workers exist.
If workers are suffering in poverty, there can be no happiness for intellectuals.