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

times: “Minghe Cunzulette is not a character

I made up, but was instead an old dear

sharecropper of my family who died about

twenty years ago, well known in the county

and the city, a primitive farmer, with ancient

ways, cheerful and respectful, completely

untouched by urbanization; born and raised

between the farm and the small house,

eating cabbage, onions and corncakes, tied to

all the old customs, the good traditions, tied

to the soil, like an elm tree in the boundary

hedge, always busily at work in the small

farm...” (Cf. Altobello, Due parole,

introductory comments to Poesie dialettali

di Campobasso, 1926, p.109 of the volume

edited by Nina Guerrizio, Sonetti molisani,

1966-1982). In fact, times had changed:

“urbanization” had undermined traditional

ways of life, values, language, style, human

relationships. Altobello’s memory explores