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

dialect of Venosa, a collection filled with

suggestive historical memory and existential

longings, whose Italian translation was

edited by Rosa Miglione. In an elegiac aura,

Chieffo depicted people and places of

Venosa, with a poignant sense of the death

of traditions and the regret for a long-lost

ethics. The world of childhood resurfaces,

from Maria the school custodian to the

various Christams Eves, the Befana, the

carnival and the bonfires of St. Joseph, with

a subtle melancholy accompanied by the real

harshness of living. Having noted that

Chieffo’s poetry has roots both in popular

poetry and middle-class culture, and that it

harks back to the poetry of Horace, Nigro

writes that Chieffo keeps on “delving into

what we have called the problems of

common life, the gnawing of existence. The

discovery of a changing world and the