marcin
(Marcin)
#1
dialect of Venosa, a collection filled with
suggestive historical memory and existential
longings, whose Italian translation was
edited by Rosa Miglione. In an elegiac aura,
Chieffo depicted people and places of
Venosa, with a poignant sense of the death
of traditions and the regret for a long-lost
ethics. The world of childhood resurfaces,
from Maria the school custodian to the
various Christams Eves, the Befana, the
carnival and the bonfires of St. Joseph, with
a subtle melancholy accompanied by the real
harshness of living. Having noted that
Chieffo’s poetry has roots both in popular
poetry and middle-class culture, and that it
harks back to the poetry of Horace, Nigro
writes that Chieffo keeps on “delving into
what we have called the problems of
common life, the gnawing of existence. The
discovery of a changing world and the