When his career is taken into perspective as a whole, Cesare Pavese's poetry has been accepted as the work of a gifted author, but it is often neglected by readers in favor of his fiction. His fiction, which was plain and cold, seemed more appropriate for the ideas he put forth, thus resonating with audiences more than his poetry. At the time when his novels were first translated into English and published in America, Pavese's poetry was still known only in Italy. His book of poems Hard Labor, for instance, first published in Italy in 1943, did not appear in an American edition until 1976. Many of his important poetic works, such as "Two Poems for T.," were not available in English until the 2002 collection Disaffections.

Another aspect that has clouded judgment of Pavese's poetry is the tendency by many critics to cling to the connection between the...