An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
An Ozark Family: Wesley McNair’s The Lost Child (Part 1 of 3) When we first moved to Kansas City, Missouri, years ago, the city seemed not much different from cities I’d known on the east coast. That is, until one … Continued
Though I supposed myself a serious graduate student, studying 19th-Century American Literature at Columbia, it now comes clear that I took away only one snippet from what that century had to offer–Emily Dickinson brief remark: A little bird walked down … Continued
I just came home from la bel’Italia, specifically three cities: Orte, Arezzo, and Florence. I’ve never been to Orte and Arezzo before, Florence, however, many many times. As part-Italian, and an art-lover, as a happy speaker of even limited Italian, … Continued
Late Summer Tears You don’t have to weep with me–not wrenching sobs at any rate, just a slow seep of wet, honoring the clouds of green and scimitars of swallows twittering against high blue. Mornings on the deck with black and … Continued
Dear Mayor Coleman, a bevy of city workers met me at the cottonwood tree this afternoon – if bevy is quite the word to include a burly Public Works guy. There they all were, kind, and informative. What seemed to … Continued
We have two sensibilities in this house–my husband’s deep-rooted radicalism. He went to prison during Vietnam not just as a draft dodger, but as a draft refuser. I didn’t know him them. Now he reads The Nation. During Vietnam I … Continued
Too many years ago to count, I won the Loft’s Mentor Series as a poet. Over the course of nine months, we were guided by perhaps six mentors, among them the poet and novelist Jim Harrison. I was recently divorced … Continued
In case you haven’t heard, Jeremy Denk recenly won a MacArthur genius grant. As did our very own Patricia Hampl, not recently, but well remembered. Ah, genius in relative youth! And I am thinking of Mozart, and his divine sonorities, … Continued
Sometimes in a schematic mood, I divide poets into Emilys and Tennysons–Emilys belong to the pare-it-down, nail-it-tight school of poetry. Tennysons to the broader sweeping, celebratory school. Their music is different. They look different on the page–Emily’s tiny explosions, Tennyson’s … Continued
A good poem can bequeath you one or two lines: such as these from Maxine Kumin’s Feeding Time: Time which blows on the kettle’s rim Waits to carry us off. (Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, 1992) I stand … Continued