Ode alla Calabria [Ode to Calabria]. Buenos Aires: Casa ed. "La Voce dei Calabresi," 1933.

Ode alla Calabria [Ode to Calabria]. Buenos Aires: Casa ed. "La Voce dei Calabresi," 1933.

This work, published by the book arm of the Italian-language Argentinian newspaper, La Voce dei Calabresi, commemorates and reflects a literary soiree held in Brooklyn in 1930 (and elsewhere, e.g., Toronto) in which the title poem was recited (and then published in the January 4, 1931 issue of La Follia di New York).

Ode alla Calabria also contains, in addition to the poem itself in Italian as written, a translation into the Calabrian dialect by Francesco Greco, and reviews of Cordiferro’s title poem that were widely published in Italian newspapers and magazines throughout the United States.

Given Cordiferro’s popularity among South as well as North America’s Italians, it is not surprising that this poetic work was published in Buenos Aires for the benefit of that city’s considerable Italian colony.

The existence of such a broad U.S. Italian-language literary audience, and the promotion of common cause with the Italians of Argentina by itself makes this work interesting. Readers of the Argentinian La Voce dei Calabresi (The Voice of the Calabresi), which advertised itself as the “popular tri-lingual newspaper of the Calabrian collective" (presumably, Spanish, Calabrian and Italian) would have known of Cordiferro’s plays.

See discussion of this work in the essay by Francesco Durante, "Riccardo Cordiferro: an Italian American Archetype," on this website.

Riccardo Cordiferro

Casa ed. "La Voce dei Calabresi"

1933

18.5 x 13.5cm; 160 p.