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I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.

I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.
The epic poems that we read are very famous.
From Lesson 247:Masculine nouns ending in -ma (-ma, -mi)·Italian

Questions & Answers about I poemi che abbiamo letto sono molto famosi.

Why does the word poemi take the masculine article i if the singular ends in "-a"?
The singular form is il poema. It belongs to a special group of masculine nouns that come from Greek and end in "-ma" (like il problema or il sistema). Because it is masculine, its plural ending changes to "-i", making it i poemi.
Does poema mean the same thing as a regular "poem" in English?
Not exactly! A poema usually refers to a long, epic poem, like the Odyssey or Dante's Divine Comedy. If you want to talk about a standard, shorter poem, you would use the feminine noun la poesia (plural: le poesie).
Since i poemi is plural, why doesn't the past participle change to match it, like abbiamo letti?
When a verb uses avere as its helping verb (like abbiamo), the past participle (letto) stays in its default "-o" form. It doesn't agree with the noun i poemi here. It would only change to letti if you used a direct object pronoun before the verb, as in li abbiamo letti (we read them).
Notice how famosi ends in "-i". Does this confirm the gender of poemi?
Yes! Adjectives must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe. Because the noun poemi is masculine plural, the adjective takes the masculine plural ending "-i", becoming famosi.

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