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

Contini, Doria, Gatto, De Robertis, Galletti,

Pancrazi, Montale, Pasolini, Luigi Russo,

Serra, Serao, Vossler, Vinciguerra, Flora, one

immediately forms the right impression of

the “magical quality” of the poet who, even

among conflicting judgments, remains for

everyone “the sentimental verista,” as he

liked to describe himself, the writer who

never refrains from giving words and

expressions their primal meaning, their

simplicity devoid of the accumulations that

time, for ill or good, has deposited on them.

It is true, Di Giacomo’s poetry is intrinsically

musical, fresh, almost olfactory, but

musicality and freshness are never produced

through vagueness and indefiniteness; in the

poet there is a strong sense of measure,

which allows him to paint at his pleasure

with more brilliant colors and the most

persuasive notes without the risk of