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

Tamburello pointed out how the island,

despite the dominations, had remained

“above all Sicilian” and how its “secret soul”

was living again, with “solar Mediterranean

clarity,” in its poetry. With regard to the

latter, the newsletter proposed to carry out

“new exegesis and research,” “with the

explicit aim to renew tradition in the light of

the latest aesthetic exigencies.” valorizing

the most talented poets and closing the door

to scribblers.31

To that newsletter collaborated, among

others, Grienti, Camilleri, Varvaro,

Ammannato, Molino, Buttitta, Di Pietro.

Very active was Paolo Messina, who also

published a short story in dialect and an

article on “Mediterranean Poetry.” His

poetry, essential and fluid, intensely

sentimental but not romantic, refined but

not Parnassian, engagé but free from the