Description
Inspired by the lyrical, mythic mode of Italian sports journalism from the 1930s to the 1950s, Viva Bartali! is a biography-in-verse of the iconic Italian cyclist Gino Bartali (1914-2000), two-time winner of the Tour de France (1938, 1948), known both as ‘Gino the Pious’ because of his fervent Catholic faith, and as Ginettaccio (‘Gino the Terrible’), owing to the short shrift he so often gave the Press.
The collection gives us an insight into the complex relationship that underpinned his great rivalry with the campionissimo (‘champion of champions’) Fausto Coppi – the ‘man of glass’ against Bartali’s ‘man of iron’. It was a rivalry that a divided a nation and defined a sport.





The Lover's Pinch
Life For Us
Ten Poems by The Romantics
Comic Poems
New & Selected Potatoes
Carnac (Bloodaxe Contemporary French Poets)
Newspaper Taxis - Poetry After the Beatles
Five American Poets
States of Happiness
Immrama