Poetry
An American Song · Canto Americano
A collection of fifty poems — one for each of the United States — whose muse is America, her people and landscapes. Translated from the Italian by the author with the American poet John Poch, it appeared in English as Most of the Stars — An American Song.
Open Sea
Nino Aragno Editore · Licenze poetiche · 2015
A poetry collection whose verse, at first glance prosaic, is in fact driven by a truncated, precise sound that opens at times into lyrical breadth — a writing that reconnects not only to the great lyric tradition, but to the living warmth of things and events.
Publisher ↗Essays
A poetry workshop against the sensory crisis of our time
Rubbettino · Zonafranca · 2023 · 102 pp
An essay on the progressive crisis of thought and sensoriality, and on poetry as a method to return language to silence, reason to the logos, and the senses to contemplation — the fruit of twenty years of work in schools.
Publisher ↗For a Glance, or for Nothing Else
Il Cerchio · Dominus Dixit · 86 pp
An earnest and disenchanted invitation to Christians and non-Christians to fix their eyes once more on the true heart of faith, and to look at life through, with, and in Christ.
Publisher ↗An American Song
Most of the Stars is a poetic journey through the United States: fifty poems, one for each state.
Written by an Italian poet looking at America from both within and without, the collection moves through landscapes, cities, memory, history, solitude, faith and the lives encountered along the way.
Long before the complete English-language edition appeared in the United States, individual poems from the collection had begun to find a home in American literary journals.
Translated into English with the poet John Poch, poems from Most of the Stars appeared across a remarkable range of American publications, including New England Review, The Hopkins Review, Rattle, Birmingham Poetry Review, Alabama Literary Review, Literary Matters, Journal of Italian Translation, Los Angeles Review, AzonaL and Another Chicago Magazine.
The journey of the poems through American journals eventually led to the publication of the complete collection in the United States by St. Augustine’s Press.
Published Across America
Utah · Alaska
Translated by John Poch
Vol. 44 · No. 1 · 2023 · pp. 194–197
Nebraska
Translated by John Poch
Arizona
Translated from the Italian by John Poch
#77 — Fall 2022
Indiana · Georgia
John Poch translating Pietro Federico
Issue 49 — 2022
Alabama · Massachussets · Maine
Translations by John Poch
Connecticut · Kentucky
Translated by John Poch
Issue 14.1
Translated by John Poch
Volume XVI, No. 1 — Spring 2021
English translations of poems by Pietro Federico
p. 123
Oklahoma · New Hampshire · Montana
Translated by John Poch
Colorado · Arkansas
Translated from the Italian by John Poch
December 14, 2021
Some of the poems could also be heard.
From Fifty Poems to One Book
After travelling individually through American literary journals, the fifty poems came together as a single book.
Most of the Stars was published in the United States by St. Augustine’s Press in 2025, in an English translation by Pietro Federico and John Poch.
The Journey Continues
Following the publication of Most of the Stars in the United States, the book became the subject of readings, presentations and conversations at American universities, including the University of West Georgia, Grace College in Indiana, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Mary in North Dakota.
At Grace College, Pietro Federico read from Most of the Stars and discussed the translation of the book with American poet and translator John Poch.
At the University of Notre Dame, Federico was invited by the Center for Italian Studies for a poetry discussion and workshop devoted to La Maggioranza delle Stelle / Most of the Stars.
Read Most of the Stars
The selected poem will appear here.