Salvatore Cutino — Symphonic Poems

19 June 1884 – 10 April 1965

Salvatore Cutino carried Palermo’s literary circles, Catholic imagery, and Italian musicality into an American poetry of Whitman, cities, machinery, radio, and wartime catastrophe. His English can be awkward, radiant, grandiose, and unexpectedly intimate—sometimes within a single poem. Symphonic Poems gathers tributes to Whitman, Helen Keller, Beethoven, Savonarola, and Francis of Assisi alongside memories of Sicily, visions of war mothers, religious appeals, and musical fantasies. Its centerpiece, “The Lagoon of Nations,” transforms the 1939 New York World’s Fair into a three-movement journey from spectacle through suffering toward international brotherhood. Cutino pursued readers through self-publication, correspondence, radio, literary societies, and private circulation, building a career outside the usual anthologies. This edition restores the complete expanded collection, including “Le Ore,” his Italian translation from Shelley, and reveals an immigrant modernism powered by aspiration, faith, and sheer audacity.

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Catalogue

Independent Los Angeles Modernisms

Associations

Migration and Exile Modernism Music and Poetry Self-Published California

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Bibliography

Cutino, Salvatore. I Canti de L’Alba. Nicoletti Bros. Press, 1910.

———. I vermi che fan la seta: Dramma in 3 atti. Stabilimento Tipografico Optima, 1912.

———. Le dissuggellate. Pacific Era Publishers, 1944. 120 pp. Some secondary records date this issue 1943.

———. Symphonic Poems. Privately printed, 1946. First edition, 30 pp. LCCN 47025211; OCLC 1828030.

———. Symphonic Poems. 2nd ed., Sunburst House, 1947. 62 pp. OCLC 2928121 and 228735264.

———. Glimmers of a Future Social Order: The Prelude. Published by the author, 1949. 21 pp. OCLC 26335366.

———. Giorgio Santayana: L’uomo, il poeta e il pensatore. Offprint from Tu Filosofia dell’Unicità, fascicle 4, July–Sept. 1953.

———. La legge d’amore: Saggio filosofico-sociale. Collana Scrittori Italiani, 1956. 61 pp. OCLC 7087550.

———. Funtana d’amuri: Poesie siciliane. Editrice Convivio Letterario, 1958. 151 pp.

———. “The Finality of Love.” The Personalist, vol. 39, no. 3, July 1958, pp. 271–275. DOI 10.1111/j.1468-0114.1958.tb03094.x.

———. Le dissuggellate: Poesie dei tempi vicini e lontani, 1901–1959. Editrice Convivio Letterario, 1960. 168 pp. LCCN 67055877; OCLC 6044655.

———. Poemetti d’amore, pace e libertà. Editrice Convivio Letterario, 1964. 114 pp. LCCN 67053484; OCLC 7614170.

———. The Fateful Squander. Published by the author, 1964.

———. Lo sperpero fatale. Edizioni Pergamena, 1964. 30 pp. Italian version of The Fateful Squander. NCID BA05230894.

———. A Glimpse at the Laws of Life; and the Law of Love: A Socio-Philosophic Essay. Translated from the Italian by Merritt M. Thompson. Published by the author, 1964. 66 leaves. OCLC 11562066.

———. Poemetti aurorali, meridiani e vespertini. Editrice Convivio Letterario, 1965. 123 pp. LCCN 75579890; OCLC 656135.

———. The Revived Ashes: A Symphonic Poem Reevocating the Attempted Genocide Perpetrated Against Jews During the Nazist Regime of Terror. Published by the author, 1967. 39, 10 pp. OCLC 7668809 and 66289243.

———. The Auroras. Published by the author, 1967. 10 leaves. OCLC 11808969.

Works About the Author

Archivio Storico Municipale di Napoli and Biblioteca dell’Accademia dei Concordi di Rovigo. Catalogue records for Le dissuggellate.

Biblioteca Universitaria di Pisa, Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale. Catalogue record for Poemetti aurorali, meridiani e vespertini.

Center for Migration Studies of New York. Italian American Writers (CMS.016), Box 3. Finding aid prepared 2017. Seven Cutino publications, open to researchers by appointment.

Coleman Mortuary. “Louis Victor Cutino” obituary, 2005. Family account mentioning A Symphony of Thoughts and unpublished Helen Keller–Salvatore Cutino correspondence.

Internet Archive and University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries. Symphonic Poems scan and metadata, identifier symphonicpoems00cuti, ARK ark:/13960/t34181q9d.

Open Library. Salvatore Cutino authority OL301939A and edition records for Symphonic Poems, Le dissuggellate, Poemetti d’amore, pace e libertà, Poemetti aurorali, meridiani e vespertini, La legge d’amore, Glimmers of a Future Social Order, The Revived Ashes, and The Auroras.

Shaw, John Mackay. Childhood in Poetry: A Catalogue, with Biographical and Critical Annotations, of the Books of English and American Poets Comprising the Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection in the Library of the Florida State University. Gale Research, 1967; supplements 1972 and 1980. Includes Cutino.

Swallow, Alan. “A Review of Some Current Poetry.” New Mexico Quarterly Review, vol. 16, no. 4, 1946, pp. 491–98. Includes a one-sentence review of Symphonic Poems.

The Huntington Library. Catalogue record for The Revived Ashes, Rare Books call number 389410.