Italica Press Contemporary Sicilian Poetry: A Multilingual Anthology (Poetry in Translation Series)

This volume spans six generations of poets born in Sicily beginning in the 1940s. Fifty-five authors, many still living and working there, are represented from a wide variety of regions, some writing in Sicilian and others writing primarily in Italian. Ana Ilievska and Pietro Russo have selected the poets and characteristic examples of their work. The translations from Italian to English by Ana Ilievska are presented on facing pages. Poems in Sicilian include an Italian version below the Sicilian text. In his introduction to the volume, Antonio Sichera, professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Catania, asks “whether there really is such a category as contemporary Sicilian poetry.” The editors answer this question affirmatively. The poets in this anthology share a flow of verse that moves through lyrical eruptions and layers of silence. Under these, if one listens well, one can sense an energy that breaks into the fabric of everyday life.