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

EUGENIO CIRESE

Eugenio Cirese was born in Fossalto

(Campobasso) in 1884 and died in Rieti in

1953, after having gone through all the levels

of elementary teaching; teacher, didactic

director and supervisor first in Molise, then

in Abruzzo, and finally in Rieti. His early

work is concerned mainly with the

collection and study of Molisan folk songs, as

shown by his first collection, Canti popolari e

sonetti in dialetto molisano [Folk Songs and

Sonnets in the Molisan dialect], 1910; at the

end of his existential and poetic itinerary we

find, emblematically, the massive and

fundamental collection of Canti popolari del

Molise (Rieti, 1953). His poetry is contained

in the following works: Sciure de fratta

[Hedge Flowers], Campobasso, 1910; La