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

VANN’ANTO’

Vann’Antò (pseudonym of Giovanni

Antonio Di Giacomo) was born in Ragusa in

1891 and died in Messina in 1960. After

receiving a college degree in literature (with

a thesis on free verse), in 1919 he began his

teaching career, which would bring him,

beginning in the academic year 1943-44, to

the chair of literature of popular traditions,

in the school of literature at the University

of Messina. He took part in W.W.I fighting

on the Isonzo; this experience inspired his

first poems in Italian, later collected in Il

fante alto da terra [The Infantryman High

from the Ground], 1923, followed by the

poems in the Sicilian dialect collected in the

volume Voluntas tua, 1926. His best work in

dialect appeared in the period 1955-56 with