Among the Pale Spires

“Biographer David Smart has a way of reaching the soul of his subject without anything of himself emerging on the page. In her brief life, Pozzi existed in the shadow of fascism, rebelling with climbing as her tool and poetry as her language. Smart enables Pozzi to escape from being a tragic footnote in a long list of Italy’s climbers and writers and brings her to resonance as a burst of intensity, rebellion, dissent, and beauty…always, beauty.” —Nandini Purandare, co-author of Headstrap: Legends and Lore from the Climbing Sherpas of Darjeeling

“An evocation of what it means to bring the mountains into yourself, Among the Pale Spires bristles with Antonia Pozzi’s creative sparks and desires, even as she lived through a time of female oppression driven by patriarchal fascism.” —Heather Dawe, author of Dreams of Lost Buttress, Adventures in Mind, High Inspiration, and Think Again

“David Smart shines new light on the brief but brilliant life of Italian climber and poet Antonia Pozzi. As she navigated the grinding cruelty of fascism, she found her moral and spiritual compass among the limestone towers of the Dolomites, where her voice was unleashed. Smart’s profile of her passionate arguments for resistance against repression is both timely and eloquent.” —Bernadette McDonald, author of multiple books including Alpine Rising and Winter 8000

“With Among the Pale Spires, David Smart continues his brilliant mission to bring the lives of some deeply important, but somewhat overlooked, characters from climbing history back into the light. This new account, exploring both the life of poet and climber Antonia Pozzi and the fascinating junction between her art and mountains, is once again proof of Smart’s deep appreciation and understanding of the alpine world.” —Geoff Powter, author of Strange and Dangerous Dreams, Inner Ranges, and Survival Is Not Assured

“Antonia Pozzi’s place in the history of mountaineering during the 1920s and 1930s, and her work as a writer who made unforgettable poems about the mountains she loved, remains unfairly obscure. Smart’s lyrical recounting of Pozzi’s life and art, and his publication of a sensitive translation of Pozzi’s poetry into English, ensures her reputation as a poet and her skill as a climber will be known fully. When facism in Italy was at its height, Pozzi refused the roles for women that facism dictated. Thanks to Smart, we can see the beauty of Pozzi’s art and the power of her love for the mountains.” —Professor Julie Rak, University of Alberta

“David Smart traces the life and poetry of Antonia Pozzi with depth and clarity, and she emerges from his vision as a tour de force – unredacted, thrilling, and politically resonant. Through his own brilliant lyricism, Smart affirms Pozzi’s singular way of writing about the natural world, particularly her profound engagement with mountain landscapes as spaces of resistance. In doing so, he immortalizes her place in literary history while further establishing himself as a distinguished and authoritative voice in the field of historical mountain writing.” —Faye Latham, poet and author of British Mountaineers

“As David Smart observes in his introduction to Among the Pale Spires, mountaineering history has been replete with reporters and philosophers but not notable poets. Here he has uncovered the life story and poetry of Antonia Pozzi, who was born into wealth and raised amid the rising fascism of 1930s Italy. She loved passionately and lived as freely as she could, climbing with the great Emilio Comici and finding her poetic voice in the mountains. Pozzi would die young, and her poetry would be censored and even burned before it found an audience. Hers is a story of relevant history, poignant biography, and transcendent poetry. Smart notes she lived in a world “where the soul conversed with mountains.” He inhabits this same ethereal domain and, luckily for readers, takes us there.” —David Stevenson, author of Letters from Chamonix and Warnings Against Myself

“Through the stories and poems of Antonia Pozzi, David Smart reminds us that gaps in histories and spaces between lines are not voids but places where blizzards can swirl through spires and souls, where wildness can reawaken in the pathways of pens across notebooks and feet over snow, and where resistance can flare up, again, in the reflections of light on stone.” —Katie Ives, author of Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams

“This luminous portrait of Antonia Pozzi traces how her brief life and extraordinary poetry were shaped by the mountains and the suffocating realities of fascist Italy. Blending the interwar golden age of alpinism with lyrical storytelling, Among the Pale Spires illuminates the intimate and compelling link between climbing and Pozzi's poetic expression.” —Amy Newman, Department of English, Northern Illinois University, and author of On This Day in Poetry History