A proud Nashvillian, Primo Bartolini liked to use his adopted city and, more in general, Tennessee as the backdrop for some of his poems. Several of his lyrics have women as protagonists and are placed within the familiar setting of Downtown Nashville.
Of his adopted city, he also describes aspects of the ‘underground’ life thus venturing into the poetic description of less than conventional topics such as betrayal and underage prostitution/ These are always described with a sympathetic, consolatory vein.
Nashville and Tennessee also offer Primo the ideal setting for his contemplation of loneliness and displacement, as the dark streets of the city and the rural countryside trigger nostalgic and somewhat woeful recollections of his lost Italianness and a subtle pessimistic vein, probably absorbed through the reading of yet another canonical author of Italian letters namely Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837).
For Primo Bartolini, poetry is also the means through which to scathingly and ironically attack “priests”, “bigots” and “women”, in a way that recalls the Italian medieval satirical vein of Cecco Angiolieri (S’i’ fosse foco… If I were fire…). However, poetry is also a way to mourn and celebrate the passing of a local hero such as fellow Italian Antonio Alonzo Rozetta, who died in 1920 after twenty years of service as Chief of the Nashville Fire Department.
