Editing Andrea Zanzotto (section)

====Elementary school====
Thanks to his teacher, Marcellina Dalto, Zanzotto already knew how to write when he started elementary school in 1927. He passed immediately to the second grade. As the poet recounts in his "Self-portrait", he already took pleasure in the music of words: "I felt something infinitely sweet listening to chants, nursery rhymes and little verses, even those of the children's magazine ''[[Il Corriere dei Piccoli]]'' -- not so much in singing, but insofar as they were pronounced or simply spoken, according to harmony linked to the very function of language, to its inner song."

In 1928 his father Giovanni took a job as a teacher in a school in [[Cadore]] and decided to move with the family to [[Santo Stefano di Cadore|Santo Stefano]] where Zanzotto completed his second grade. By the end of summer, however, Giovanni realized that the distance between his wife and her mother was causing his wife to suffer. He decided to move the family back to Pieve.

The death of Zanzotto's sister Marina in 1929 made a lasting impression on the mind of the young poet.

In that year, his father Giovanni came to public attention for his campaigning against the fascist [[plebiscite]], and was condemned to remain in exile. Nevertheless, he managed to work on the restoration of the church at [[Costalissoio]]. Zanzotto, attending third grade at the time, joined him during summer vacation, but suffered homesickness.

In 1930, Zanzotto's brother Ettore was born. At the same time, Giovanni was forced to go into debt due to the embezzlement and flight of a clerk at the company (a labour [[cooperative]] for injured veterans) which was providing him with the means to support the family. This imposed financial constraints on the entire family.

During this period, he became close to his maternal grandmother and to his aunt Maria, who as he wrote in ''Uno squardo dalla periferia'' ("A view from the edge"), made him listen to "fragments of ''Latino maccheronico'' (mock Latin)" and involved him in the activity of the little theatre where she worked as a dramaturge, ''capocomico'', director and actress.

At school, he proved a lively but not always disciplined student, often receiving the scoldings of his father. The young man showed no talent for drawing, the very subject which the father had mastered. The father insisted then that Zanzotto take music lessons since music was the passion of the town thanks to the fame of local [[soprano]] [[Toti Dal Monte]] (whom Zanzotto would recall at the being of his opera, ''Idioma'').