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

the southern peasants, of their seasonal

work, of their unslaked thirst for freedom

and happiness. Granatiero evokes and

contemplates, but also empathizes and

condemns, understands and gets angry.

Lyricism and social participation are the two

sides of this poetry.

As an exponent of the last generation of

dialect poets in Apulia, Granatiero

summarizes the encounter of two types of

discourse that intersect with increasing

awareness at the terminus of this kind of

artistic expression. On the one hand, the

valorization of the least conscious details, of

the deepest sensations; on the other, the

desire to “narrate,” in poetry, a part of

history, by this means recovering communal

memory.

Criticism: T. Bolelli, La Domenica del

Corriere, July 21, 1984; P. Gibellini, Diverse