ossa di crita

First poetry book by Massimo Barilla published by Mesogea edizioni in March 2020.
Illustrations by Aldo Zucco

Collected and published for the first time, the poems written in the dialect of Reggio Calabria are like stumbling pebbles scattered along a path of over twenty years of research and writing that travels through the experience of theatre to reach poetry verses. 

Small concretions of the soul nourished by words and visions of earth, matter and body in which sonority and meaning are intimately related. 
The musicality is not only the skeleton of this body of earth but it also becomes flesh itself, a living audio matter with low sounds, twisted and dissonant cadences that claim a voice to live, to vibrate in the language of the soul and memory: the dialect.

Cogghiu supra ’sta strata,
chi munda 
comu persica matura
a facci da muntagna,
petri
ianchi comu la peddi 
nova
di la stati 
chi veni a lu ’ntrasattu

On this road  / that peels / the mountain’s face / like a ripe peach / I pick up stones / white as the / new skin of a / sudden summer.

(Translated into English by Elizabeth Grech)

Dolores Carnemolla
Dolores CarnemollaRivista clanDestino
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"The poet-playwright (…) chooses the soul of the language, resorts to the bowels of word (…) The strength of Massimo Barilla's poetry lies in his transforming the agitation of strong and tormented feelings into delicate images."
Gianfranco Brevetto
Gianfranco BrevettoEXagere Rivista
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"In Barilla's rich dialect, even some precious words that the Italian language seems to have left out: "Sucamele", "magarìa", have embarked me into a journey through the childhood memories of a sweet, fragrant, hard and parched land."
Paola Abenavoli
Paola Abenavoliculturallife.it
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"A beautiful journey between history and feelings, between humanity and interiority, through a dense style and a musicality that besides being read, must be especially savoured and listened to."
Corrado Speziale
Corrado SpezialeScomunicando.it
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"Compositions that can be read and "heard" as sounds, with passion, immersing the reader in the purity of a language that flows from the earth and runs through the human soul."
ilreggino.it
ilreggino.it
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"The strength of words carrying an ancient wisdom and imbued with an innate poetic nature. Unleashed by the sounds, a visceral power moves those words from paper to voice, sharing out loud what is written in intimacy."
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