One of the most original personalities in the development of experimental poetry in the 1960s and 1970s, Mario Ramous was born on 18 May 1924 in Milan and lives in Bologna. He started his career as an art and literature critic for various periodicals, including the Progresso d'Italia and Emilia, and the Italian national radio (RAI). For several years he was editorial director for a publishing house. He now teaches at the University of Urbino. He was an active member of the Italian Communist party until the crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956 led him, along with many other Italian intellectuals, to believe that the trust they had placed in the justice of "realized socialism" was illusory. His break with that political organization, however, did not diminish his adherence to the ideal of social justice that had attracted him to it in the first place. His allegiance to the ideal...