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

have preserved all that I could of so much

adorable “idiocy” and I have naturally

sought in the forms a syntactic stability

rather than an easy symmetry of tones.

Lately there has been a great deal of talk

about the necessity of widening the bounds

of culture by searching beyond traditional

stylistic patterns in the broader field of

spontaneous art. It is a certain symptom of a

more comprehensive, more affectionate

inclination towards the monuments and the

neglected fragments of a humanity relegated

outside of history. I too, with a new spirit

and more enjoyment, have made a journey

towards the origins” (Sinisgalli, Poesie

lucane, 1955, 2nd ed. 1992, passim). Also in

that text, Sinisgalli wrote: I still remember

by heart the song that children shout at the

moon:

Moon, new Moon,