Drinkable Poems
This section is dedicated to the poets and writers who have inspired the names of our products. In the first part, you will see a brief biography of the author and their photo. In the second, the poems we have used are reproduced.
Happy reading!
PS: Translating poems into English is hard, so please bear with us.
Nino Martoglio
Fierce publicist (he founded and directed in Catania the political-literary hebdomadary newspaper "D'Artagnan," from 20 April 1889 to 17 April 1904), gorgeous dialect poet (Centona, 1899; 1907), happy film director and director of "Morgana Films" (Capitan Blanco, Sperduti nel buio, Teresa Raquin), prolific playwright (Nica, 1903; I civitoti in pretura, 1903; 'U paliu, 1906; San Giovanni Decullatu, 1908; Voculanzìcula, 1909; Riutura, 1911; Capitan Seniu, 1912; L'aria del continente, 1915; 'U riffanti, 1916; L'arte di Giufà, 1916; Scuru, 1917; 'U contra, 1918; Taddarita, 1919; Sua Eccellenza, 1919; Il marchese di Ruvolito, 1920; Annata ricca massaru cuntentu, 1921), lively organizer of conventions of vernacular poets (attended by Di Giacomo, Trilussa, Pascarella, Fucini, Russo, Barbarani, Testoni, Selvatico, among others).
Nino Martoglio (Belpasso, 1870 - Rome, 1921) was also a passionate director of theater companies ("Compagnia dialettale siciliana": 1903, 1904, 1907; "Teatro minimo o a sezioni": 1910; "Compagnia del Teatro Mediterraneo": 1919) which, if sometimes short-lived due to internal and external hostilities, achieved prestigious results.
Nino Martoglio - Amuri di Fimmina e amuri di matri:
- Mamma, I don't know what I have this morning!...
- Gesuzzu!... Who are you feeling, holy love?!...
- I feel like I want to blow up 'n the mouth,
and 'n the breast like a virrina!
- Figghiuzzu, and how do I do it?... Vih, chi scantu
che mi sta dannu, cori miu, chi spina
ca mi metterti!... But you, ccu dd'acquazzina,
come è c'è c'arsira firriásti tantu?...
Lu Disìu
Tuttu dipenni dalla circustanza
ca ci ammatti alla donna 'ntirissanti.
Mintemu:
àvi un disìu di 'na pitanza,
comu fussiru funci... and makes a liafanti.
O puramenti si tocca la panzamentri ca guarda un pezzo di 'gnuranti:
ci nasci un figghiu ca, diminiscanza,
è sceccu, vita natural duranti.
'A Nutturna
('ntra la vanedda di S. Caterina, at four o'clock in the night)
- Ciccu, give me 'ssu la, San Chitarraru
di la Madonna! - Prestu, ca c'è Rosa
c'aspetta 'a 'tturna. - 'I cordi s'allintaru!...
- Brau! And 'a carusa? - Ca si v'arriposa...
- E tannu sperdi a trunzu!... Va, accurdaru?...
- Cu' fussi 'u capu 'a 'tturna! - Who's what?
- Don't desprizzannu... me' cumpari Maru...
a prifirennza di l'amici... - (Posa
'ssu minnulinu, Carmelu...) Parrati...
- Avi 'na buona vuci di supranu...
- Mi nni cumpiaciu, e poi? - Siti prigati...
- Di chi? - D'accumpagnallu... - E si n' 'o fanu?...
- Sfasciamu baulli e porti allannati!...
- Scrusciu faciti, allura ddà, 'ntr' 'o chianu!
O' dark O' dark
Iu li cugghivi 'mmenzu li lurdumi,'ntra li taverni, 'ntra luupanaru,unni lu nustru suli è tantu avarudi luci, né virtue, né c'è costumi.
Iu li cugghivi unni paru paruLu sangu allimarratu scurri a sciumi,unni lu scuru è thicku e c'è pri lumisulu ocche luci luci picuraru.
And li cugghì of night, frightened,tastiannu comu l'orvi muru murue zuppicannu comu li sciancati.
Pricchissu, and also pricchissu su' sicuruchi a fari lustru non su' distinati,iu li vosi chiamari: "o' scuru, o' scuru"
U' Toccu
('ntra la taverna d' 'u zû Turi 'u Nanu)
- Attoccu ju... vintottu 'u zû Pasquali...
Biviti? - Bivu, who aren't you patruni?
- Tiniti accura... can do you harm...
- Maccu haju a' casa!... - And ju scorci 'i muluni!...
- Patruni fazzu... - To whom? - To Ciccu Sali
- Ah!... And sutta? - To Jabicheddu Tartaruni.
- (A mia 'mpinniti?... A corpa di pugnali
finisci, avanti Diu!...) - 'Stu mmuccuni,
si quando mai, ci 'u damu, a Spatafora?...
- Troppu è, livaticcinni un ghiriteddu.
- Nni fazzu passu! - A cui?... Nisciti fora!...
A mia 'stu sfregiu? - A voi tintu sardaru!...
- Largu! - Largu! - Sta' accura! - 'U' cuteddu!...
- Ahjai, sant'Aituzza!... M'ammazzaru!
'A tistimunianza
Dedicated to Cesare Pascarella, "A tistimunianza", is a drama in eight sonnets in the Catanese dialect. It first appeared in 1899 through the Bookseller-Editor Cav. Nicolò Gioannotta, in an elegant edition, accompanied by a drawing by Giovanni Martoglio of ascetic, pathetic, restless fascination, sweetest vitriol, dedicated "fraternally, to Nino" and dated 3 December 1898, in a mixture of verism (the young woman who commits suicide for love) and symbolism (the evanescent victorious rival).
Giovanni Meli
Giovanni Meli lived from 1740 to 1815. An eclectic, imaginative professor of chemistry at the University of Palermo until his death, a successful physician, and fake abbot, Meli devoted himself to poetry from the age of fifteen and reached success with La fata galanti, a poem marked by philosophical-social themes. His poetry is greatly influenced by his close contact with the rural world, with a real and not ideal or stylized countryside, where to seek inner peace, serenity, and the joys of love. Of him De Sanctis said, "Meli found old literature and transporting it into his dialect breathed into it the freshness of youth, made it the world of truth and feeling."
La Fata Galanti
"Vogghiu sapiri, o Fata mia, cui siti?
quale è lu nomu appropriatu?
Pirchì 'un putennu dareivi altro gloria
l'avirò sempre fissu a la memoria.
Idda rispunni: la tua curtisia
mi sforza a palisariti cu' sugnu;
iu sugnu la tua propria fantasia"
Alfio Antico
Alfio Antico was born in Lentini in 1956. Until eighteen, he was a shepherd in the Syracuse area; he is now one of Italy's most celebrated percussionists, owning about seventy drums, all made and inlaid by him. He has collaborated with the most eminent personalities in music and theater, including Fabrizio de Andrè, Giorgio Albertazzi, Lucio Dalla, Vinicio Capossela, and Edoardo Bennato.
Occhi di Ciumi
Occhi di ciumi, muti sunu sti me schigghi, comu a lu ciumi, occhiuzzi amati. Occhiuzzi beddi 'nginusi, occhiuzzi saggi' mbannunati. How much richness you have given meu, water of heaven to ciumi and funtani. Without na stidda mmenzu a lu scuru jennu o' ciumi sulu sulu.
Francesco Guglielmino
He was born on 8 March 1872, in Aci Catena (Catania). Having completed his early studies at the local high school, he enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Catania, where he graduated on 8 July 1895.
A teacher at Cutelli High School, he devoted himself to lecturing on ancient and modern authors (Virgil, C. Goldoni, H. Ibsen) at the Lyceum circles of Catania and of the Ancient Drama of Syracuse. He also made a name for himself as a dialect poet, with the collection Ciuri di strata (Catania 1922, with a Preface by F. De Roberto).
Vitaliano Brancati, in the preface to the 2nd and enlarged edition of the book (Catania 1948), called Guglielmino a romantic poet of dialect literature. Indeed, his poetry, both in the moments when the lyric expresses itself directly and when it hides behind the mask of popular characters, always gives voice to a universal sense of transience, in which an almost madrigal grace sometimes mitigates melancholy. Unlike the dialect used by Nino Martoglio, his friend, Guglielmino's dialect eschews popular tones while retaining a natural classical echo. This is far from the literary elegance and refined, cultured play that characterize Giovanni Meli's Sicilian.
He became a full professor of Greek literature in 1936, and until 1942, when he retired, Guglielmino devoted himself to teaching at the University of Catania; even after his retirement, due to wartime and post-war hiring freezes, he was put in charge, as a non-tenured professor, first of courses in Greek literature and then of those in the history of religions. In 1949, he was appointed emeritus professor at the same university.
Guglielmino died in Catania on 25 February 25 1956.
Ciuri di Strata
'N campagna, cantu cantu di li strati,
ammenzu di li petri e li ruvetti,
sutta l'irvuzza tennira ammucciati
unni cu l'api runzunu l'inseti,
ci sunu di ciuriddi in quantitati
ca spissu 'n coddu lu pedi ci metti,
ciuriddi ca non su' mancu guardati,
ciuri ca si li cogghi poi li jetti.
Luigi Pirandello
(Agrigento, June 28, 1867 - Rome, December 10, 1936) Pirandello was an Italian playwright, writer and poet, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. For his output, themes addressed and innovation in theatrical storytelling, he is considered among the most important playwrights of the 20th century. His works include several novellas and short stories (in Italian and Sicilian dialect) and about forty plays, the last of which is incomplete.
(notes taken from Wikipedia)
Cappiddazzu pays allu:
Don Zulo returns to his home country after spending many years in America. Having become wealthy,
the man organizes a revenge against his own relatives who are guilty of leaving him alone and never taking care of him.
The reason for the discord the false arrival, spread by Don Zulo, of a very rich young American nephew in search of a wife.
The culmination of Don Zulo's revenge will be the theatrical performance organized by him, under the guise of preparing a surprise for the incoming young guest, with the typical masks of
Sicilian tradition: the old woman of l'acito, donna Tinnirina, Aunt Vittula, don Ninnaru, don Sucasimula, Peppi Nappa, don Cola Mecciu, Giufà and
Cappiddazzu paga tuttu, the latter mask of generosity played by the protagonist.
Ercole Patti
Narrator, playwright, journalist, screenwriter, film critic, Ercole Patti was a multifaceted writer, already considered a classic figure of the 20th century. The places of the soul and metaphor of the universe, Catania and Rome, the two geographic poles of his existential and literary itinerary, populated by characters of fiery sensuality, give us the variegated fresco of an unrepeatable season, from the 1920s to the postwar years, the economic boom, and the dolce vita, of which he was a leading protagonist.
(notes taken from La nave di Teseo - Sarah Zappulla Muscarà)
A Beautiful November
The grape pickers and grape harvesters climbed in a row up the little outside ladder of black lava
and arrived in front of the little window of the palmento, tipping their baskets
filled inside; the clusters beat and piled there on the planting in that intoxicating smell of grapes and freshly nipped
shoots while the crushers with wooden shovels pushed the clusters toward the center and began to
dance on them by sinking their boots into them.
Liolà
Ullarallà!
va' pistannu, cumpà!
va' pistannu, va' pistannu, va' pistannu,
ca cchi piu forti d'orellannu,
t'avi a vèniri ch'annuuu,
lu vinuzzu, Liolà!
Ullarallà! ullarallà!
Ciullo Dalcamo
Cielo d'Alcamo was an Italian poet and playwright, also known as Ciullo d'Alcamo (Alcamo, ... - 13th century). He is one of the most significant representatives of popular troubadour poetry of the Sicilian school.
(notes taken from Wikipedia)
ROSA FRESCA AULENTISSIMA
"Rosa fresca aulentis[s]ima ch'apari inver' la state,
le donne ti disiano, pulzell' e maritate: tràgemi d'este focora, se t'este a bolontate; per te non ajo abento notte e dia, penzando pur di voi, madonna mia."
Domenico Tempio (aka Micio)
Domenico (called Micio) Tempio lived between 1750 and 1821. He was a poet from Catania, endowed with great sensitivity and cultural depth, but mostly known for his erotic work, which made him the victim of criticism and censure throughout the nineteenth century, before being rediscovered in the mid-twentieth century. Beyond his more purely sensual output, Micio Tempio, a failed clergyman and jurist, he painted his society, his Sicily, in his verses, with such caustic wit taking aim at its distortions, hypocrisies, and rampant ignorance. Some consider him to be a forerunner of the Verist Movement.
Lu Veru Piaciri
"Non cantu l'armi: lassamu stari
in manu di li vappi e spataccini.
Chi gustu bruttu è chistu di cantari
straggi, sbudiddamenti, ammazatini!
Lu sulu dirlu già fa trimari
lu piddizzuni, e s'aprinu li rini.
Fora di mia li truci oggetti e l'iri:
amu la Paci, e cantu lu Piaciri"
Salvatore di Pietro
Salvatore Di Pietro, born in Pachino in 1906 and deceased in 1990, was an expert of Sicilian dialect and customs. With extraordinary insight into his poetic qualities, he invited Salvatore Quasimodo to give a recital to the Catania Artistic Circle just a few months before the latter was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Almost all his works are written in Sicilian dialect and focus on aspects of peasant life or themes of nature and idyll, not neglecting social issues such as industrialization, existential anxieties, and generational and labor conflicts.
A poet attentive to history and sensitive to human's deepest religiosity, Salvatore Di Pietro was also a reference point for generations of Sicilian poets, whom he inspired in style and poetics. His artistic experiences began with the theater, precisely on the mobile stages that took turns in the 1920s, in the great square of Pachino, along with numerous and qualified companies, including Giovanni Grasso. This was his first major impact on dialect theater culture, and he certainly owes his inclination to write plays to this experience.
Muddichi di Suli
"Metru e rima
sunnu musica di lu cori
e ci misi
pp'accurdari 'sta vuci di l'anima
'nta 'sti muddichi di suli"
Giovanni Verga
Born in a noble family, he lived in an environment of liberal traditions. He initially devoted himself to writing adventure novels under the influence of the works of Dumas (father). Later, he focussed on topics relating to passion and produced several works including Story of a Blackcap, which was successful. He moved to Florence in 1869 and three years later to Milan, where he frequented literary circles, meeting Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Giacosa. With the novella Rosso Malpelo his adherence to The Verism Movement was clear, and this led him to write two of the most remarkable novels in Italian literature: I Malavoglia (1881), his most complete work, and Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889).
Verga's new conception of Verism triggered the "disappearance" of the author, making the facts in the narrative develop on their own, as if by spontaneous necessity. Verga's language is rough and stark as a reflection of the world he represents, made up of both poor people as in I Malavoglia and rich people as in Mastro-don Gesualdo, all of whom are nevertheless "losers" in the daily struggle of life.
The writer was also involved in theater, scripting some of his novellas, the most famous of which is Cavalleria rusticana, later set to music by Pietro Mascagni. Verga became a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy in 1920 by appointment of King Victor Emanuel III.
Antonio Veneziano
Antonio Veneziano(Monreale, 7 January 1543(baptism) - Palermo, 19 August 1593) was an Italianpoet , citizen of the Kingdom of Sicily and wrote mainly in Sicilian dialect.
He lived a somewhat adventurous life and, due to his intelligence and versatility, he had a great reputation both in Sicily and abroad. After studying at a Jesuit college, Veneziano ran into a long series of legal problems: first with his family over inheritance issues, then over an alleged murder and his elopement with a young woman that caused him to be charged with kidnapping.
Embarking to follow Charles of Aragon, he was imprisoned in Algiers where he met Miguel de Cervantes and became his friend, so much so that the latter, in 1579, dedicated to him an epistle in twelve octaves. Cervantes valued this work so much so that almost seventy of his verses were reinserted in his play El trato de Argel, which tells of his imprisonment in Algiers.
Their friendship was tinged with admiration on Cervantes' part as evidenced in his novella El amante liberal, where the author tells of a Sicilian prisoner who knew how to magnify, in remembrance, the beauty of his woman by expressing himself in sublime verse: this was probably Celia, Veneziano's most famous work.
In 1579, Antonio Veneziano was freed and returned to Sicily. In 1588, he was imprisoned for writing a manifesto against the government. He died in 1593 in Palermo, in the prison of Castello a Mare, the ruins of which, destroyed by the explosion of a powder magazine, can still be seen in the vicinity of Palermo's harbor. Legend has it that his body was found in the rubble with a bunch ofgrapes in his hand.
His literary output is vast. He wrote mainly poems in Sicilian dialect, but he also devoted himself to Italian and Latin. His main work is the poemCelia, dedicated to the woman he loved (variously identified as one of his nieces or the deputy queen of Sicily, Isabella La Turri, or Franceschella Porretta) and composed during his imprisonment in Algiers. Other poetic compositions include many satires and other burlesque rhymes. Some of his octaves were collected in a volume entitled Ottave and edited by Aurelio Rigoli in 1967.
