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

search for infinity (and this is also new).

The text in ouverture: “Sicily,” from

1945, is still structured in quatrains with

alternate rhymes, but new are rhythm and

assonance, with a concinnitas that indicates

how the voice of the Hermetics and

Symbolists has already been assimilated in a

personal way. The same happens in the

sonnet “Passaggi” [Passages], from 1947,

characterized by metaphors which are fresh

an unusual with respect to tradition:

“mocking eyes, “white sleep.” To the same

year belongs “Ura ca passa” [Passing Hour],

with which the poet leaves behind

traditional metrics and turns to free verse, in

full maturity. With “respiru d’un ciuri”

[Breathing of a Flower] the choice is

definitive.

Criticism: P. Mazzamuto, La mafia nella

letteratura, Palermo 1970; P. Longo, in