Achille Serrao, who writes in the dialect of Caivano, a small town in Campania, in this book deals with his own Aanxiety of influence@ vis-á-vis the great melodic tradition of Neapolitan poetry, exemplarily represented by Salvatore di Giacomo, by reclaiming instead another, anti-melodic, anti-subjective Neapolitan legacy, from Basile to Capurro to Russo. The result is a poetry of striking originality and power, in which the painful incomprehensibility of life is affirmed with a language that can be sharp and refractory, yet subtle and elegant, confirming Serrao=s standing as one of Italy=s foremost neodialect poets. (Luigi Bonaffini) A...it seems to me that in these Neapolitan poems, if in his own very controlled and ironic fashion, Serrao is seized by a lyric frenzy, by the beauty of sounds, by the love for language, for the internal lines of a musical language such as Neapolitan.@ (Franco Loi) AHere you find Eliot's terseness...life's incomprehensibility affirmed forcefully, without whimpers, with lucidity and, in the end, not without hope.@ (Cesare Vivaldi) A...The notable result is a Serrao immersed in sounds but not submerged by them, an elegant, light Serrao who nevertheless does not disdain the popular vein.@ (Dante Maffìa) A...It is a poetry that gives voice to that minimal and almost unperceived droning of men and things...restoring from below (but it would be more accurate to say: ab interiore homine) an image that has, at the same time, the lightness and the thick innervation of a leaf or a living organism...@ (Angelo Mundula) A...'A canniatura, that is, Athe crevice,@ Athe crack.@ It is this opening that lets in the flow rising from the depths. The subject is often autobiographical, but isolated in a light of singular impersonality. Serrao's poetry represents an anti-subjectivist exception in the present landscape.@ (Franco Brevini) ACHILLE SERRAO CANTALÈSIA (Cantico) poesie in dialetto napoletano (1990 - 1997) Per Maria CANTALÈSIA Poems in the Neapolitan dialect (1990 - 1997) by Achille Serrao For Maria Edited and translated by Luigi Bonaffini 4 INDICE/CONTENTS IINTRODUCTION Piero Gibellini >A CANNIATURA 'O puntone .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 The Street Corner ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 5 ''A jurnata ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8 The day ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Mal'aria ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Evil Air ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 'O CUNTO D''E CCOSE PICCERELLE THE TALE OF SMALL THINGS SAGLIEMMANCO CRIATURO ............................................................................................................................................................... 18 CHILD TUMBLER ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 19 'E PPAROLE THE WORDS Nu tiempo c'è stato ................................................................................................................................................................................. 28 There Was a Time ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 29 Friddo e che friddo .................................................................................................................................................................................. 30 Cold and What Cold ................................................................................................................................................................................ 31 A st'ora chi simmo .................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Who Are We at this Hour ...................................................................................................................................................................... 33 Vide che d''a muntagna ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34 Look, Wounded Between the Eyes. ................................................................................................................................................. 35 Speranzella 'e nu sole ............................................................................................................................................................................. 36 Slight Hope of a Sun ............................................................................................................................................................................... 37 Na rosa rosa ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 38 A Rosy Rose ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 39 >O SSUPERCHIO THE RESIDUE 'O strummolo ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 44 The Spinning Top...................................................................................................................................................................................... 45 Addò c'aveva 'a partere .......................................................................................................................................................................... 46 5 While She Should Have Left ................................................................................................................................................................. 47 Trasette vierno ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 48 Came Winter ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 49 Accussì trase vierno ................................................................................................................................................................................. 50 So Winter Comes In ................................................................................................................................................................................. 51 'O vide 'e venì ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 54 You See Him Come .................................................................................................................................................................................. 55 Patemo nun lassava ................................................................................................................................................................................. 56 My Father Never Left ............................................................................................................................................................................... 61 'A neve .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 58 The Snow ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 59 'A scardella ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 60 Hemp Dust .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 61 Chill'anno ....................................................................................................................................................................................................