An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
Growing up as an outsider in Charleston, South Carolina, cut two ways: into myself when I recognized how divergent I was, how odd, how embarrassing, how ultimately unrecognizable. But also outward, toward the movers and shakers, toward the society that … Continued
At the Holiday Inn Riverview, I look down twelve stories onto a sweep of Ashley River and marsh. Charleston, South Carolina, where I grew up, is chilly this December. My parents, from Pittsburgh (father) and Hankinson, North Dakota (mother), used … Continued
So many kinds of racism, so many ways it hides or shows its true colors. In the Southern United States, with its centuries of enslaving Africans and Native Americans, white settlers, then citizens developed intricate, deep, subtle but often overt … Continued
“Don’t say such a thing in public,” I can almost hear him admonish. Yet, when I think back, piece together his behavior, that becomes the simple conclusion. Racial prejudice nearly ate him alive. He could have been worse. As far … Continued
My father, the classroom professional, instructed us in manners, in American presidents, in Southern secession (after he, the boy from Pittsburgh, learned it himself). He also tried to teach us an ancient, musical, time-keeping method which I pull from memory … Continued
It’s rained overnight and the air is fresh. Up early the cardinals chip-chip as they come to the feeders. The most beautiful of the backyard birds, yet the most shy, they arrive in the twilight hours, as if wanting to … Continued