Antonio Verri, il poeta che fece della cultura una militanza

Marco Laggetta 16 January 2023

Antonio Leonardo Verri, born in Caprarica on February 22, 1949, was an Italian novelist, poet, journalist and publisher as well as a valuable cultural operator and main animator of the literary debate of the 1980s of the Southern Avant-garde. He was often placed by local critics among the so-called “cursed poets of Salento”, together with his friend Salvatore Toma, of whom Verri was an indispensable promoter.

From 1977 to 1993 he founded and directed the magazines “Caffè Greco”, “Pensionante de’ Saraceni”, “Quotidiano dei Poeti”. He collaborated with “Sudpuglia” and curated the direction of “On Board” and “Titivillus”, as well as numerous editorial series. His best-known works in prose and poetry are: Il pane sotto la neve (1983), Il fabbricante d’armonia, Antonio Galateo (1985), La Betissa (1987) and the posthumous volume Bucherer l’orologiaio (1995), all published by the Salento publishing house Kurumuny.

His indomitable stubbornness allowed him to make inroads even in a difficult context like that of Salento in the 80s, a land barren of resources and promises. A memorable feat was the one that saw him working to distribute daily and without stopping for almost two weeks in a row the «Quotidiano dei poeti», composed only of poetry and printed in Maglie, at the small Erreci editions of Pino Refolo, through a network of friends and militants, in Puglia, Basilicata, Campania, Lazio, Umbria, Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino.

The lyric “Fate foglie di poesia, poeti”, his poetic manifesto, is considered a hymn to poetic militancy and has inspired and encouraged generations of young writers.

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Antonio Verri, the poet who made culture a militancy

Written by Marco Laggetta

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Antonio Verri, the poet who made culture a militancy

Written by Marco Laggetta

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