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

Emblematic appears the poem “‘A

staffetta” (Prima cantu... e doppu cuntu, 1949),

dedicated to his friend Michele Pane, who

“sings” the journey of the poet’s daughter

from America to Calabria, “messenger of

love and sorrow.” The sentimental and

elegiac note that seems to prevail focuses on

the lyric representation of the details of the

journey and the town that the young woman

(Libertà) discovers again, almost borrowing

her father’s eyes so that she can better report

her impressions to him. Acquavona’s

fountain, the chestnut tree, the letters carved

on the bark of the tree, the old mill, the

river, the small house, the carnations in the

window, welcome Libertà like a fairy and

honor her, no less than relatives and friends,

in the name of her distant father who has

entrusted his identity to those signs, which

have become symbols of a world living only