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

debut in 1922 with Sangu sicilianu [Sicilian

Blood], followed by Amuri [Love] (1923) and

La Santuzza (1927). His first organic

collection, Surgiva [Fountainhead], which

appeared in 1940, is initially conceived as an

autobiography in verse, but the poet’s

universe gradually widens: from insular

themes to evening songs and lunar

enchantments, from mystical impulses to

local color, to the meditation on the vanity

of things. Seriousness and lightheartedness

also characterize Il volto della vita [The Face

of Life] (1958), in which “serious” and

“comic” poems are arranged in different

sections, to underline the twofold reality of

existence.

His masterpiece is Pupu di lignu [Wooden

Puppet], written in 1927 but published in

1969: a reworking in 36 cantos with protasis,