'A Canniatura

Achille Serrao, who writes in the dialect of Caivano, a small town in Campania, in this book deals with his own «anxiety of influence» vis-à-vis the great melodic tradition of Neapolitan poetry, exemplarily represented by Salvatore Di Giacomo, by reclaiming instead another, antimelodic, anti-subjective 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 position as one of Italy's foremost neo-dialect poets.