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

death, that first nucleus of poets formed a

group and took on the Master’s name. There

were no manifestos or apparatus criticus,

although a few traces can be found in local

publications. In 1955 the Group published an

anthological volume Poesia dialettale di

Sicilia, with an introductory comment by G.

Vaccarella and texts by Ammannato,

Buttitta, Conti, Varvaro, Grienti, Messina,

Molino, Orsini, Tamburello. In 1957, in the

Roman review Il Belli edited by Mario

Dell’Arco, Vann’Antò defined neòteroi the

new poets, Sicilian like himself.

Messina defines the Group’s main points

as follows: development and adoption of a

Sicilian koinè; syntactic and metric freedom

in favor of expressive power; unity of

thought, language and reality, in a Sicilian

perspective of life and art.^5

Paolo Messina’s poetry, as it emerges