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

Lorca’s and Neruda’s lesson.

In 1947, meanwhile, after the separatist

movement began to fade, the Sicilian Region

was born, autonomous, with a special

statute; the same year also saw the massacre

of Portella della Ginestra, still obscure in

some respects, which was attributed entirely

to Turiddu Giuliano, a character which has

remained suspended at least in part between

the figure of the gentleman bandit and the

defeated patriot.

In Agrigento, in the years 1950-51,

Antonino Cremona (1931), who was not

connected to any group, writes his poems in

the Girgenti dialect; much admired for their

spareness and clarity, they were published

by S. Sciascia with the title Occhi antichi

[Ancient Eyes], and remain a precise

reference point. In the same period, the poet

Nino Pino was writing in the Messina