Dario Bellezza (1944–1996) was Italy’s first openly gay, major prizewinning poet-novelist-playwright who died a premature death of AIDS-related complications. Over the course of a twenty-five-year career, he published more than twenty books including eight full-length poetry collections, eight novels, two plays, translations from the French, and nonfiction. Influenced by Rimbaud, the Beats, and the growing European rights movements, he won the Viareggio Prize, Italy’s most prestigious poetry award, and the Montale Prize for lifetime poetic achievement. The sheer variety of forms, from epigram to brash love-lyric to sustained political narrative, coupled with the fervor of Bellezza’s voice make a compelling argument for his lasting importance among the best poets of the second half of the twentieth century.

Poet-translator-editor Peter Covino is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Rhode Island. He is also a well-published scholar and winner of the forthcoming What Sex Is Death? Dario Bellezza Selected Poems, Wisconsin Press Prize for Poetry in Translation (2025). He is also the author of a coedited essay collection on Italian American Literature and the prizewinning full-length poetry books, The Right Place to Jump and Cut Off the Ears of Winter, both from New Issues, Western Michigan University Press. His prizes include an NEA Translation Fellowship, a Fellowship from the Richmond American International University of London, and the PEN American/Osterweil Award. He is a founding editor/trustee of Barrow Street Press.