TÒNI BAUDRIER
Frassino (1921-1999)

Humanist, philologist, a highly inspired religious thinker, with a creative and lively spirit and deeply involved in political issues, he was however more than anything a great poet.
His poems, also demonstrate a marked rhythmic sense, and thanks to him the language of the Occitan valleys which at one time had the derided status of a «patuà» threatened with extinction, was elevated into a sublime language with an intimate and universal feel. For “Barba Tòni” (Uncle Tòni) as he was commonly known, this language was life, an instrument of expression and liberation, as well as a a studied play of origins, derivations, relationships, and loans, a search for neologisms and new semantic values.