An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
I’ve been reading James Carroll’s 1996 memoir An American Requiem: God, My Father and the War that Came Between Us. The phrase, “a child-changed father,” comes toward the end of the book, after Carroll’s three-star general father (also a lawyer) … Continued
I’m reading James Carroll’s memoir: An American Requiem which won the National Book Award in 1996. Sometimes when a friend passes along a book found in the “used bin” at 2nd Hand Books, it’s a keeper. Carroll grew up in … Continued
I’m just getting around to reading one of the finest works of history written in the 20th century–Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. It crossed my attention, probably from a New York Times Book Review, in 1978, when it was first … Continued
When my daughter was maybe five or six, we would walk out of Prospect Park in southeast Minneapolis, cross the bridge over Highway 94, and reach our side of the Mississippi. Since the river runs north/south there before it bends … Continued
The drive north to Lutsen and back is relatively easy in early May. Road construction already begun, but hardly any traffic on the road. Still I had plenty of time to listen to two short books on disk. Driving up … Continued
Scott King, poet/publisher of Red Dragonfly Press housed at the Anderson Center in Red Wing, writes to offer appreciation of the recent blog featuring his poem, and the addition of two corrections: the Greek poet who inspired him (and may … Continued
Not the cruelest, despite T.S. Eliot’s “April is the cruelest…,” though there’s plenty of breeding out of the deadland. Nor is it necessarily dreaded tax time since for us at least, we’re almost always so afraid of not sending enough … Continued
George Segal created a room (displayed in the Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota) honoring his parents: floor-length living room lamp, overstuffed chair and sofa, cathedral radio, and life-size statues of his parents. In my museum of memories stands a … Continued