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

Stones], 1983.

Having attained some financial security

with his business, in 1970 the poet had

moved back to Sicily for good, devoting

himself only to poetry. He lives in Aspra, in

a villa he owns, a stopover for scholars and

admirers.

After his debut in 1925 with Sintimintali

[Sentimental] and Marabedda in 1926, Ignazio

Buttitta’s (1899-) poetics is more clearly

defined in the decade 1945-55; to this period,

in fact, belong the texts that reveal the social

commitment characteristic of much of the

poet’s work: A la stragi di Purtedda [The

Massacre of Portella], 1947 and Lamentu

d’una matri [A Mother’s Lament], 1953,

modeled on the rhythms of popular songs,

which present moments of crude realism,

whose function is to involve, ideologically