The muse of Pietro Federico’s most recent collection of poems, La Maggioranza delle Stelle (Most of the Stars), is the United States of America, her people and landscapes. In fifty poems (one for each state), Federico plumbs the depths of the historic, geographic, political, emotional, psychological, and metaphysical realms through a variety of voices of these fifty states. Translated from Italian into English by the author with American poet John Poch, this book is unlike any other collection of poems. Federico is fascinated by the American spirit, to use the words of Giancarlo Pontiggia, "an America made up of stories as raw, rough, endless and inconclusive as the immense landscapes in which they took place." 
 
In Most of the Stars the linguistic power of the Italian literary tradition and the contemporary vernacular combine to articulate an idiosyncratic understanding of the New World—the breadth of its cities, its towns, its frontiers and interiors. Federico’s deeply spiritual understanding of our own American personalities and histories offers us a gift of beautiful objectivity. Students of poetry, linguistics, and cultural anthropology will be grateful to Federico and Poch for the wonder offered in this bilingual collection. 
 

PIETRO FEDERICO was born in Bologna, Italy in 1980, and currently lives in Rome. Writer, copywriter, story editor and professional translator, his poetry books are: Non nulla (2003, Ibiskos Editore, Empoli) winner of the prize “Il Fiore” Pistoia 2003; Mare Aperto (Nino Aragno Editore, Turin, 2015) winner of the Subiaco Award 2015 and Ceppo Award 2017; La maggioranza delle stelle – Canto Americano (Edizioni Ensemble, Rome, 2020).
 
JOHN POCH’s poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, Paris Review, Agni, and many other magazines. His most recent collection of poems is Texases (WordFarm 2019). He is the series editor of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and he recently edited the collection, Gracious: Poems from the 21st Century South (TTU Press 2020). His first book of criticism, God’s Poems: The Beauty of Poetry and the Christian Imagination was published by St. Augustine’s Press (2022). He teaches at Grace College in Indiana.