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

lyricism,” in the words of Turi Vasile^34 , in

which the poet deals with the mystery of

words and their origin; words designated

not as abyss (Ungaretti’s “buried port”), but

rather as “reality, as man containing all of

man, as historical knowledge and

creation.”^35 For the first time a text of

Sicilian dialect poetry ventures in the

treatment of such a hard and absorbing

theme, to demonstrate that Sicilian has all

the requirements not only to deal with alleys

and country roads, but also questions of

philosophy of language. And what is more,

in a manner not at all dry, in poetry. A kind

of poetry which is not artificial.

Alfio Inserra (1935) achieves notable

results in the actualization of myth, at times

drawing, at times erasing the demarcation

line between wisdom and madness, between