Valeria Cimo’s Terramadonna

A S.Rosalia
(Terramadonna)
For Falcone and Borsellino.

Ddici la santa ca’ i Palermitani
addivintaru comu i vavaluci
dici ca n’sannu cchiù fari all’amuri
e pi’ chistu i fimmini i’ fannu curnuti
ca lu curaggiu c’addivintau muoddu
comu li vertuli d’un portancoddu.
Si stannu a la casa s’ attuppanu a vucca
picchì na’ parola è picca e ddu’ su’ truoppa
si nescinu, lassanu tuttu ‘ngrasciatu
picchì lu caminu cci nesci vaviatu,
s’iddu po’ chiovi su’ motomuniti
fermi ccu’ u’ traficu comu li scimuniti.
E’ la ricetta di tuttu nn’anzi
picchì mancianu ancora comu all’antichi:
s’iddu su crasti si mettinu i panzi
s’iddu nnuccenti ci viri i viddichi;
a diri ca: “cu u pitittu semu tutti li stissi”
o puru: “sintissi a mmia pu’ cafè arristassi”.
E’ na ricetta particolari
quartordici luglio è cosa spiciali
e si la passanu di generaziuni
comu argumentu ri cunversaziuni:
nesci li penduli e li maiddi,
comu s’iddu un s’hannu scannatu ntra r’ iddi
mettici l’acqua pi’ la vugghiuta,
ti dici sta’ fimmina ‘nsannallaruta
dunaci anticchia i’ farina i frummentu
c’anticchia i dijunu un ci po’ fari dannu,
cocili comu ddi cociri lentu
cu la frischizza e senza pentimentu,
‘ncoppali bbonu cu u’ sali e cu ll’ogghiu
ca’ puri a la santa cci pari n’umbrogghiu
sta’ cosa ri cuociri cu la cuacina,
ca mi pari l’unica a ristarici viva:
Signore! s’accomodi pi’ na’ spuntatina
e chi ssu’ quattru morti pi’ na’ sparatina?
E santuzza mia chi t’haju a diri,
cu’ porta li corna jè puru tradituri,
t’ha fari la santa vistuta di ciura
‘nmenzu a stu’ populu d’ingannatura
Però Rusulia senza esagirari
c’anticchia di saziu ti lu putemu dari
pi’ centu nnu’ piattu ca lassanu i rischi
deci t’acchiananu puru i mura lisci.

Assemmula
(Terramadonna)

Ti dugnu la manu
cu manu ti vasu
e cu’ lu vasu t’amu
lu vasu è ccu la vucca
nta’ vucca ddu’ paroli
e ccu’ paroli mori
cu a’ morti c’è u’ silenziu
troppi su’ li paroli
e cu l’occhi to’ ju saziu
veni l’ora di jucari
joca un pocu gilusia
jo ti vegnu a tuppuliari.
Po’ ti dugnu un pizzuluni
cu duluri riri ‘ncapu
e cu u’ risu arrè l’amuri
e l’amuri ca ti dugnu
c’è l’amuri di lu munnu
e ju cu lu munnu vaju
caminannu cu la luci
ca ti detti ntra li manu
mai a lu scuru t’arridduci
cu l’amuri ca mi dasti
ju ti dicu ammuri dduci
tu lu scuru l’astutasti.

Few words of praise

I’m pleased to be able to write some words of auguri for Valeria Cimo’s Terramadonna. By chance at a festival in Bologna in 2011 in celebration of the unification of the Italian republic 150 years earlier, and in which we both had participated, Valeria and I met at a dinner table following the event. As the translator of a book of the great Sicilian poet Santo Cali, I was delighted to meet a poet-singer who wrote in Sicilian, and agreed to write some words for her new CD, which she was preparing.This is a beautiful collection of 13 song-poems and 8 “stories” or, really, vignettes written as prose-poems as well. Valeria Cimò is a marvelous fusion of traditional Sicilian themes of love and death with a brilliant contemporary sophistication of poetic sensibility that roots every line of her works in a deeply penetrating sonority. Sound is the absolute ground of her poems.And I must say I came to understand the truth of the many Italians on my reading tours in Italy who have told me that the real poetry of Italy lies in the dialects or the other “languages” of that land, like Friulano or Sardo. I happened to have translated one of Santo Cali’s books written in Ital¬ian. I did translate a few of his epigrams in an unforgettable almanac of Sicilian poets that I had, but I admit to not having gotten very deeply into the language of Sicily. But one would have to be poetically blind not to recognize in the poem, for example, which Cimò calls “Assemmula (Con Te/With You)” an extraordinary melodiousness in Sicilian that clearly is superior to the Italian translation and certainly to an English translation of it. Lines like …
lu vasu e ccu la vucca
nta’ vucca ddu’ paroli
e ccu paroli mori
have such a natural brilliance of elisionary sonority that reading them aloud, even if one is not singing them, can be a breathtaking experience.
Valeria Cimò writes with such sibilance throughout Terramadonna, so do keep your ears and heart open for the experience of this Sicilian poetic Madonna herself.
Jack Hirschman
Emeritus 4th Poet Laureate of the City of San Francisco (2006-2009)

Earth
The show Earth, brings to the stage the repertoire of Terramadonna, the third monograph in the path songwriting of Valeria Cimò.

Terramadonna has the belief that claims a practical farmer with common sense:
respect for the planet, as for the woman; as the direct impulse to deface the body of the earth, has the same kind of compulsion inflicted on the body of the woman.

The show ignites a passion for the emotions as if they were torches to illuminate our cave so far more effective than a religious cult.

Earth is an act of respect to the great injury of physical abuse and intellectuals, the woman and the man, now engaged in a medicine of rehabilitation necessarily not plastic.

Earth is the new Madonna, or Eve, for this was; a cult terrain revisited thanks and beyond feminism, beyond the archaic that feeds us so much, anarchy as daily food, over the apocalypse, over catastrophism.

Valeria Cimò:

Student of Luigi Bernardi, Beatrice Monroy, Carlo Lucarelli, Roberto Alajmo, Massimo La Guardia, Daniela Ferro, Miriam Palma, Marzouk Mejiri and Paul Cimino, Glen Velez, Lyane Redmond, Ewry Kwong, Jack Hirschmann, J. Romero Naranjo.

SHe founded the trio Ma’arìa with Matilde Politi; Duo Kyma with Gianluca Dessi, with which publishes “Sugnari” and Kyma.
He plays with Eugene Jackson, Alfio Antico, collaborates with Claudio Collovà, Antonio Presti, Carlo Muratori, Nini Ferrara, Tania Kitzou. He plays for numerous national and international festivals such as Off, the ‘Edge, the Folk East, Trimpanu, Kastoria and events conducted by the State University of Bologna and Milan.
She receives with Mogol, the Award for the Best Text Andrea Parodi. Recognized within the Resolza Rose Awards, receiving the Critics Award at the Festival of Caltanissetta.
Reviewed by Sing Out, The Sound, Lineatrad, Blogfoolk, Psychodreamtheater. Conducts intensive courses Tambourine at the Conservatory of Sassari and intensive courses in Pescara, Ferrara, Trapani, Messina.

Online publics two works of Philosophy “on Duality”, and “On Earth and the woman.”
And ‘member of the training Voix Magique under the artistic direction of Lucilla Galeazzi making his debut at the Festival Ile de France.

She publics the third monograph (after “Sugnari” and “Minds”) as “Terramadonna” on all online platforms, presented by Jack Hirschmann, Andreina de Tomassi and Marco Betta.
In the semifinals for the tenco Award 2014 for the Best Album section in dialect. In radio for Radio Rai and experience scores of Paul Tavelli, Luxembourg. Albert Hera welcomes it in its media platform among the significant artists of World Music.

https://it-it.facebook.com/valeria.cimo
Info:
valeriacimo@gmail.com

Italiano