An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
Carol Bly, one of Minnesota’s finest essayists, published an essay with this title in her collection, Letters from the Country. It’s probably my favorite, written when she lived in a small prairie community in the 1970s. She advised us, in … Continued
The small plane from Houston banked lower, the clouds parted, and there lay a wide, dry plateau spread with cactus like huge Gumbies ready to jig. The word arroyo came back to me: deep fissures in the earth, which would … Continued
“Over the river and through the woods/ To Grandfather’s house we go” meant traveling three days and two nights on the train from Charleston, South Carolina to Hankinson, North Dakota. Grandfather’s house was a glorious, gingerbread affair set on a … Continued
“It is a truth universally acknowledged… So begins Jane Austen’s divine novel “Pride and Prejudice.” Austen’s satiric pen turns like a double-edged knife toward the reader and the characters in her novel. Let’s try that tactic: It’s a truth universally … Continued
English is full of such wonderful sound-alike, but mean-different words. And I pounce on them occasionally when like these–waste/waist–they hit a gong in my head. ITEM: In my walks around the neighborhood–beautiful evenings, balmy as milk, and scented with phlox–I … Continued
Proud cat, but dead, to give his name to our entire furry tribe, Archie is the only one who ever traveled by car to the North Shore. He’s the only one better known (or regarded) up and down the avenue … Continued
One of my favorite movie moments is all about “we’re having a heat wave”–In the Seven Year Itch, Marilyn (the quintessential Marilyn, one of the greatest of all time) stands over an exhaust grate. It’s New York, circa 1955–air pours … Continued
Yesterday in a belated Father’s Day celebration, my step-daughter (she the math teacher, she with the 9-month-old boy) took her dad and me to Target Field to watch the Twins. It was hot. The Twins were not. But we were … Continued
My adorable, second-cousin Eleonora has a small apartment in assisted living. She is 94. When she and her sister Sadie moved to this Presbyterian Homes complex–regular apartments, cottages, assisted living, and the “health center”–in 1998, they were still vigorous. Eleonora … Continued
Since I seem to have born with an academic calendar in my head, mid-May to Labor Day is a season out of time and work. Especially in the last five years since I’ve declared verboten any teaching during the summer. … Continued