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

speech,” stripping it of the artificial frills

accumulated in our literary tradition,

meager as it might be.

A voice of great breadth would have

certainly become Umberto Postiglione (1893-

1924), from Raiano (l’Aquila), if death had

not taken him away so soon from life and

poetry. His output is rather scant, but it

contains pages that to us seem unforgettable.

Among the few poems that have survived,

in our judgment stand out “A na rinnele”

[To a Swallow], “Ne fije spierze” [A Lost

son], “A nu ruscigneuje” [To a Nightingale],

suffused with a melancholy pathos,

restrained yet heartbreaking.

Also worthy of being placed in the same

line seems to us Cesare Fagiani (1901-1965),

from Lanciano. Having made his debut with

Lu done [The Gift], 1933, in collaboration

with his father Alfonso, he gradually grows