Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

the landscape, social engagement,

emigration, poverty, ethical disposition,

which exorcise any possible risk of

autobiographical self-withdrawal. In

Curcio’s bibliography, fundamental is the

volume Chi canti, chi cunti? [Who Do You

Sing, Who Do You Tell] (1983), based on the

tonalities of a melancholy chant conveying a

koiné aimed at realizing a sort of

Mythological landscape in which time

appears almost as a still mystery and life a

sum of invariables. In the satirical collections

(Tirituppiti, catta ‘a lira, 1976; ‘A scola è na

virgogna [School Is a Disgrace], 1977; ‘U

populu [People], 1979) Curcio even uses

scurrilous plebeian language that is

metaphorized in multiple images (his

bestiary is very rich), while it tends, on the

sociological level, to take on a series of