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

attest to his personal contribution to the

renewal of Sicilian dialect poetry in that

period; L’acchianata di l’aciddara [The Climb

of the Bird-Sellers], a moving celebration of

an ancient road in Palermo’s ravaged

historic center, in essential and poignant

verses; in 1989, with Epigrafie Siciliane

[Sicilian Epigraphies], the poet follows the

path, not often beaten in Sicilian dialect

poetry (although examples are not lacking,

from Veneziano to Calì), of epigraphy; but

experimentally, and more than irony or

sarcasm the poet embraces lyricism, in a

language ─ as Antonino Cremona noted ─

“gamboling from one subject to another,”

which does not undermine the unity of the

text.33

Singular is the poem Li paroli dintra [The

Words Within] (1991), of “polished