HUGE CHANGE IN PLANS

malafemmina press deeply regrets being unable to publish the Neapolitan/Campania anthology and sends sincerest apologies to all those who submitted work.

 

The opportunity to respond? Not with JLS.

Apparently, the people at the Journal of Lesbian Studies feel that they can’t be sued for what was said about me in Mazzucchelli’s article and that’s all they care about. They didn’t even offer to let me claim my own identity by writing a response. I guess they thought it would be too embarrassing for them.

 

And who said anything about suing? I just don’t like being invented. I don’t like being misrepresented in Mazzucchelli’s lie-infested article.

 

But if these people don’t care about how I feel, they should at least care about whether or not the articles they print make sense, whether or not what they print stands up, whether or not what they print is logical, thoughtful and insightful. Mazzucchelli’s article is none of these things and makes their journal look as though it’s put out by a bunch of ignorant little girls who want to play at being academics.

 

I don’t have an official opinion of JLS. I only read this one article and I didn’t even know the magazine existed until a friend sent me the article. But the above is the impression I get from this one article and also the e-mails they sent me. In one of these e-mails, one of them says that the matter has to be discussed “to” the director. Give me a break. Learn English before you start working for an English-language magazine. Mazzucchelli herself uses a plural verb with the noun ‘news.’ If she reads enough to be a college professor, she should know by now that ‘news’ is used with a singular verb. We say ‘the new is,’ Mazzucchelli, not ‘the news are.’

 

This essay is more about me than my poetry. She only used my poetry to invent me. Mazzucchelli wrote what you could call a mini-biography of me without even checking her facts. She just made up stuff to suit her own ideas, her own stereotypes, her own prejudices.

 

She says: “Rose Romano’s work needs to be inscribed in the complex historical and cultural climate of her time...”

Of my time? Did I die? But maybe the use of this expression is just another result of Mazzucchelli’s limitations in English.

 

She says: “Romano’s poetry celebrates pride in her lesbian identity, but it also explores the difficulties engendered by her sexuality.”

 

And then: “In fact, Romano’s poetic project particularly focuses on the difficulties engendered by her sexuality.”

 

I try to be as precise as I can. I have fourteen dictionaries. Difficulties are not engendered by any oppressed group. Difficulties are engendered by the oppressors. I do not accept the blame for my own oppression. You might as well go ahead and say that Afro-Americans cause racism and the Jews are responsible for the Holocaust. Where is the logic in that? Where is the sanity in that? If you try to resolve a problem, and you go looking for it in the wrong place, you’re never going to resolve it.

 

She says: “Romano’s first collection of poems Vendetta is also dedicated to her daughter, with a bitter-sweet explanation that leaves no room for doubt as to the poet’s degree of awareness of the familial expectations of Italian-American culture: ‘to Megan, my daughter, / for proving I can do what’s necessary.’ ”

 

‘Also?’ Without a referent, that word means very little. ‘...bitter-sweet’? ‘familial expectations of Italian-American culture’?

 

My dedication was not bitter-sweet. It was intended, like all dedications, to show gratitude. The complete dedication is:

“To Emilia, my grandmother,

for showing me it’s good to be Italian [notice it doesn’t say ‘Sicilian’];

to Beatrice, my mother,

for teaching me to write my name;

to Megan, my daughter, for proving I can do what’s necessary.”

I dedicated my first book to these three women because they each gave me something very important. I raised my daughter completely on my own, with no help from my ex-husband or my family, and when I saw her growing up, not only normal, but strong and able (which is what the word ‘Megan’ means), I was damned proud of myself.

 

Taking seriously the raising of your children is something normal parents do in all cultures. It’s considered a joyful responsibility. Raising your children is not a dreary chore. I’ve known people who think it’s the most important job in the world—and some of them weren’t even Italian.

 

She says: “Adrienne Rich’s famous formulation—the ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ of her community, as proved by her marriage.”

 

I don’t know what ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ means. I was completely oblivious to my sexuality when I married my husband. I married him because I loved him and, because I thought I was straight, I thought the relationship meant marriage, sex, the whole kit and caboodle (Look it up, Mazzucchelli).

 

In any case, an act (marriage) cannot prove a feeling (lesbianism). Reality doesn’t work that way. This is just another example of Mazzucchelli’s limited ability to think things through.

 

She says: “However, Rose Romano’s relationship with the multicultural lesbian community was fraught with difficulties and conflicting feelings. The issues were mainly about her notion of Sicilian Americanness...”

 

I don’t have a notion of Sicilian Americanness. I don’t have a clue about Sicilian-Americanness.

 

I am Neapolitan. I was raised by my Neapolitan grandmother. I grew up surrounded by my Neapolitan family. Like any child, I wanted to be like my family. Mazzucchelli should be aware that children want to be like their family, many of them even when they get into their teens. What planet is this woman from?

 

She says: “Because of all the above reasons, the process of identity construction in Romano’s poetry involves the recovery of her Sicilian heritage.”

 

Where does she get this crap from? I have no Sicilian heritage to recover. This is something she made up in her own head.

 

If Mazzucchelli knew as much about Sicilian-American literature as she wants people to think she does, she would be aware that there is a Sicilian-American writer who identifies very strongly as Sicilian, in spite of the fact that she’s half Northern. Lots of people are aware of this writer. She’s also a lesbian, which means that, if Mazzucchelli had included her instead of me, she wouldn’t even have lost any points towards the gay vote and could have gotten an article about her in JLS.

 

But even if Mazzucchelli is that ignorant of her own field, it would be easy to find this woman on the internet. Go to yahoo or google and search for ‘Sicilian-American lesbian writer.’

 

Let me reiterate: I am Neapolitan and if you don’t like it, tough shit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't like being invented.

The following is an e-mail I sent to the Journal of Lesbian Studies and to SUNY press.

My name is Rose Romano. There is an essay about me (“The Scum of the Scum of the Scum”: Rose Romano’s Search for Sisterhood) included in Chiara Mazzucchelli’s book The Heart and the Island, which was published by your press. According to your description, the book discusses Sicilian-American literature.

 

I don’t belong in this book. I have never identified as Sicilian-American and I am not a part of Sicilian-American literature. If Mazzucchelli had bothered to do her research, she would have known that.

 

She talks about my “notion of Sicilian-Americanness” and how I used my “Sicilian heritage.” I have no notion of Sicilian-Americanness and I have no Sicilian heritage to use. In fact, I don’t even know what “Sicilian-Americanness” means. Sicilians have always been foreigners to me. I have always identified as Neapolitan.

 

In her article, she says : “According to the family history, her grandparents on her father’s side “were Neapolitan / nobility, owned property on the bay, named [her] / father Victor, after the king—they knew him / personally” (“Just Two More,” Vendetta 10). Ironizing on the self-aggrandizing family mythology, the poet wonders why no adequate explanation has ever been provided to her as to the reasons that pushed this allegedly  rich couple to leave its fortunes and titles—count and countess—behind in Naples to become in the United States just ‘two more / wops’.”

 

Mazzucchelli knows absolutely nothing about my family history. She seems to be basing her ideas on her own prejudices and stereotypes and her need to further her own career by publishing.

 

My poem does not ironize on “the self-aggrandizing family mythology.” It simply reports the truth, although that truth, within the poem, is incomplete. My “allegedly rich” grandfather was the ward of King Vittorio Emanuele II. He was a count; his wife was a countess. My Neapolitan grandparents went back and forth between Naples and New York and happened to be in New York when they ran out of money. But they had enough money left to buy a house and to open a business. Only a rich person would think he was poor because he couldn’t afford to live in a castle. And, considering what was going on in Italian politics at the time, there were good reasons for a count to want to stay in New York, reasons that my grandfather would not have wanted to tell his children.

 

But, instead of checking her information or admitting that she’s guessing, she just presents her guesses as though they’re facts and calls my aunt a liar.

 

She says: “The contestatory potential of Sicilian Americanness as a discourse in Romano’s hands is easy to discern when one introduces the element of choice in the poet’s process of self-ascription.”

 

This is the entire poem:

 

Just Two More

 

My aunt, keeper of the family history, says

my grandparents were Neapolitan

nobility, owned property on the bay, named my

father Victor, after the king—they knew him

personally. They seem to have come over

accidentally. My aunt can’t offer a satisfactory

reason why they would leave a home of

respect and riches—a count and countess—

to come so far to this classless

society, where they were just two more

wops. I try to imagine the bay, the hills

rising in green steps around it,

Mt. Vesuvius smoking. But when my aunt

explains that my grandparents owned a

villa in Castellammare, which she describes

as a suburb of Naples, all I can see

is my cousin at his barbecue in his backyard

in Staten Island.

 

If you can show me a “process of self-ascription” as Sicilian-American in this poem, I will eat my computer. This “self-ascription” is Mazzucchelli’s own invention. Instead of doing research, she presumes to read my mind and concludes, according to her own stereotypes and prejudices, that I wanted to be Sicilian in order to escape the lies of my Neapolitan family—something which I, myself, did not find “easy to discern.” She backs up nothing that she writes.

 

A self-ascription is a yes to oneself, not a no to others.

 

The only time she recognizes my being Neapolitan, which she manages to ignore at the same time,  is when she tries to use my “Neapolitanness” to back up her claim that I identify as Sicilian, in the process making me and my aunt look bad. The expression double-think comes to mind.

 

I’ve met people who are under the impression that venting and writing poetry are the same thing. Some people seem to think that every poem a poet writes is about her and gives an accurate account of some event in her life. But a poem is the same as any other piece of literature—some of it is real, some of it is symbolical, some of it is true of other people, some of it is just made up to make a point.

 

But a literary critic can be expected to be more sophisticated and to know better. Mazzucchelli should at least be honest enough to know that she has no idea whether this story of my family is true or not. She should be educated at least well enough to know the difference between a poem and an autobiography. She should have enough understanding of literature to know that the authors of murder mysteries aren’t necessarily murderers.

 

I’m betting Mazzucchelli doesn’t even know what this poem is about. It’s not about my family. If I’m remembering the terminology correctly, this story about my family would be the “occasion” of the poem, not the subject.

 

The poem is about assimilation, particularly in the way it’s accomplished within Italian-American culture, a culture born of Italian culture. The first generation, arriving in the United States, would have left half their culture behind and lived in what they were able to salvage and to hide in their hearts, even from their own children. The second generation, who typically wanted only to be American, would not have investigated much, only dropping a few crumbs to their own children. The third generation is already replacing Italian images with American images.

 

You’d think an Italian literary critic who’s qualified to evaluate English-language literature would have seen that very easily. I think the meaning of that poem is pretty obvious.

 

I wrote to her to ask her why she wrote these things. She said she tried to find me but couldn’t. Is that the general practice of academics—if you can’t do the research, you just make things up to suit your own purposes?

 

She could have found me if she tried hard enough. I have always had my residenza at the address where I live. It’s been my experience that many Italians believe anyone in authority. If she had presented herself as an authority, even the police would have given her my address. In spite of the privacy laws, the police have handed out my personal information on more than one occasion.

 

She even quotes one-third of my dedication to Vendetta, calling it “bitter-sweet.” My dedication was not bitter-sweet. It was intended to show gratitude, as all dedications are. Mazzucchelli uses this partial quote to read my mind. And what does this dedication have to do with my work?

 

This article is about me, someone she knows nothing about, and not my work.

 

If a critic thinks my work is crap and backs it up with reasons that make sense, that doesn’t bother me. But this article is about me and not about my work and it’s just a list of lies.

 

I’ve written several e-mails to Mazzucchelli who always responds with brief, curt, dismissive messages, sometimes suggesting that she’d like to discuss these things but never discussing anything. She seems to think I’ve disappeared forever and she takes advantage of that to invent me as she pleases.

 

My last e-mail to Mazzucchelli was sent a week and a half ago. I haven’t received a response.

 

As I said to Mazzucchelli, I don’t like being in a book about Sicilian-Americans. I’ve very uncomfortable about it and I think that any real Sicilian included in the book, if she believed Mazzucchelli, would think I’m being presumptuous and ridiculous in trying to get points as a Sicilian, and would be resentful. If I were Sicilian, I would be resentful. As a Neapolitan, I’m ashamed to be presented as someone pretending to be something she’s not.

 

In fact, I found, on the internet, another article about me and others, that says I’m Sicilian-American. It’s copyrighted 2015 State University of New York Press, Albany and was written by Michaela Baldo called “Italian-North American Women Writers.” It discusses Sicilian-American writers and includes me. The author apparently got information from articles like Mazzucchelli’s. People believe these things.

 

A lot of people believe what a literary critic says because, they think, literary critics know everything and writers are all a bunch of assholes who don’t know shit from Shinola.

 

What is your policy at SUNY Press? Don’t you check information or at least require your writers to back up what they say? Don’t your historians and biographers do research or do they all just make things up to suit their own ideas?

 

I think Mazzucchelli only included this article in her book to make it a little fatter. I know academics have to publish and apparently some of them don’t care what they publish—they’re more concerned with their own careers than they are with scholarship.

 

If this book is print on demand, please delete the article about me now. If not, please keep it out of any future editions.

 

Being remembered as something you’re not means being forgotten.

 

I don’t like being invented. I don’t like people claiming to know something about me when they know nothing. I don’t like bullshit.

 

Rose Romano

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call for Manuscript Submissions

malafemmina press will be publishing an anthology of writings by and about Neapolitan descent people, wherever they live (whether the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, France, even in Italy, or anywhere else), whatever generation they are, both women and men, even half Neapolitan.

 

If you fit in anywhere, you’re welcome to submit work, which should be about Neapolitan culture, how and why you identify as Neapolitan, what being Neapolitan means to you, what your experiences have been as a Neapolitan.

 

There are only two requirements:

 

1. pride in being Neapolitan

2. real knowledge and understanding of Neapolitan culture

 

I will not consider whining and complaining about Neapolitan culture. I will not consider anything that comes across as an apology for being a wop.

 

If you want to complain, complain about the racists.

 

I will be very pleased to consider work that is not politically correct.

 

Although I hope to see essays, poetry will be considered, too. As of now, I have set no limitations as to length. I’d like to see the work first. I haven’t yet established a deadline.

 

I’m looking for real knowledge and understanding of Neapolitan culture, not crap the media told you.

 

If you’ve got any questions, write to Rose Romano at malafemmina.press@virgilio.it and I’ll be happy to answer, assuming I know the answer.

 

Tapestry by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

Tapestry by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
© 1999 Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
ISBN 0 09 183872 X
Random House

Just as there are so many people in the United States who think that, at this point, Italian-Americans are just American, many people think the same of Italian-Australians.

The truth is that Italians are still Italian, no matter where they were born and raised. I call us all italo-stranieri, Italian-foreigners.

And for me, as an Italian-American living in Italy, this book, Tapestry, is a friend. Although it’s 267 pages long, I gobbled it up in one day.

 But it’s a book that would be interesting and important to anyone, not only those who are living in countries where their parents or grandparents emigrated to, but also to anyone who doesn’t quite fit in or to anyone who has a heart and a soul.

 Aptly named, it’s written in the form of a tapestry. There are no chapters. There are only bite-size bits of stories, stories of Italian immigrants in Australia, stories of those who remained in Italy, stories of people left out, carefully placed in relation to each other. From her grandparents who never left Italy, from her immigrant parents in Australia, from her second-generation self, from her third-generation daughter, her stories, her impressions, her feelings weave in and out in a tapestry anyone can recognize.

 By saying, at the beginning of the book, “I can show you only what I see and what my fingertips touch. What will you see and touch?” she includes you (yes, you) in the book. In fact, inclusion is the most important part of her work.

 Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli is a senior lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at Deakin University, researching, for many years, in the areas of gender, ethnicity and sexuality. But, although she knows what she’s talking about, this book is not stuffy. It’s very readable, readable enough to make you feel every emotion you’ve ever known. There are difficult truths here and there is joy.

Buy this book. Read it carefully. You need it.

I, myself, am looking forward to reading it many more times.

Some contact and ordering information for this as well as other books by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli:

mariapc@deakin.edu.au
www.seekbooks.com.au
www.ipgbook.com
www.booktopia.com.au
www.dymocks.com.au

 And, of course, there’s always Amazon.

review of Neither Seen nor Heard

This is a review of my book of poetry that appeared on the goodreads site.

Neither Seen nor Heard by Rose Romano
published by malafemmina press, available on Amazon


Neither Seen nor Heard is Rose Romano’s third book of poetry. It includes all of the poems in her first two books, Vendetta and The Wop Factor, plus poems published in literary journals and some never published before. But, while many of these poems would be familiar to people who know her work (which has been taught at universities in the United States and Canada and is included in the collections of many public and university libraries), it’s all new to me.

And I’m stunned by it all. She talks about being an Italian-American in a way that I’ve never seen before and she interweaves her sexuality (she’s a lesbian) with her ethnicity. Although I’m not a lesbian, I’m Italian-American, and I find her work fascinating. I’ve learned a lot about things I should have known about long ago by reading these original and and very strong poems.

One poem, “And She Laughs,” on page 15, in which she talks about a lover who is apparently “pleasingly plump,” includes these lines:
She has thighs
that could hold up
Aphrodite’s temple in
Sicily.
I tell her—dieting
is un-Italian
and she laughs,
choking on her salad.

I didn’t even know Aphrodite had a temple in Sicily!

And she talks about things that other people might not want to hear about.

“Dago Street” describes the lynching of Sicilian-Americans in 1890, alternating between a controlled account of the lynching with a simple explanation of how this lynching still affects Italian-Americans today, even including some experiences in a meeting of lesbians to talk about racism.

She says:
... One [Sicilian] was
shot in the head, his right hand
blown away when he raised it
to defend himself, the top of his
head gone; he waited nine hours
to die. ...

In “Wop Talk”, she mentions just about every problem Italian-Americans have ever had with bigotry and invisibility. She ends it with what seems to me to be a warning to all Italian-Americans:

I remember when I
had this crummy apartment
in a slummy neighborhood
in Brooklyn. The landlord
asked me one day if
I was getting enough
hot water. I said
yeah.

After that
I didn’t get as
much hot water
anymore.

“The Family Dialect” talks about the quincentennial celebrations of Columbus’ “discovery” of America and makes some important points that I’ve never read anywhere else. She mentions the “politically correct” people who protest against the celebrations but have no plans to go back to the countries their grandparents came from and give their place back to the Native-Americans. She also mentions that Columbus was a Jewish Italian, something else I didn’t know before.

But it’s not all depressing. There are poems that celebrate Italian-American culture, describing dinners with the family (Food is mentioned a lot in this book.), how strong and resourceful her grandmother was, and just how good it is to be Italian-American and an Italian-American lesbian in particular.

And there are a couple of poems that don’t mention at all being Italian-American and/or a lesbian.

And a couple of the poems are even funny.

I think this is a really important book and more people should read it—for both pleasure and learning.

 

I'm a Monkey-American.

All these years I thought I was an Italian-American and now it turns out I'm a Monkey-American.

I found out by getting into an argument with a raving, ignorant, stupid bigot who thinks that stereotypes and cultures are the same thing and, to him, it's logical that, if you accept a positive stereotype, you MUST (his caps--apparently he's one of those people who think that caps make it true) accept the negative stereotype.

For example, if someone compliments a French person on French cuisine, the French person MUST accept the fact that the French drive like maniacs.

The same goes for the rest of us. If I want to accept a compliment on Italian cooking, I MUST accept responsability for the Mafia.

He calls these rules and, he says, rules can't be changed. I guess he hasn't noticed that rules are changed all the time. He calls these facts. But, while cultures may be facts, a stereotype is an opinion--and it's an opinion formed by stupid people who don't know all the facts and are making guesses convenient to them based on a brief experience with one or two members of a group.

And, since these are the rules and the facts, he thinks he has the right to tell everyone what they are and what they can and can not do. You know, sort of like God.

Well, speaking of Italian cooking, I can't cook worth a damn. But that's just one reason I'm not allowed to be Italian-American.

Here's the other reason. Did you know that the garbage pails of Italians (I think he meant Italian-Americans but I don't think he knows the difference) reek of garlic? In all the years I've been trying to tell bigots how stupid and ignorant they are, I really never knew that the garbage pails of Italian-Americans reek of garlic. Of course, when speaking of the smell of garlic, I would prefer the word perfume, and maybe that's part of the reason.

The point here is that my garbage doesn't waft the delicious scent of garlic.

You know those cramps you sometimes get in your legs in the middle of the night? Well, a friend told me they're caused by not getting enough potassium. So I started eating bananas.

Now my garbage pail reeks of banana peels.

So, like I said, I'm not really Italian-American. I'm Monkey-American.

A couple of poems from Neither Seen nor Heard

Mutt Bitch

It’s not easy being an angry poet
when you come from a culture
whose most profound statement of anger
is silence.
No one knows
what you’re talking about.
No one knows
what your problem is.
No one believes you.
A poem needs a lot of explaining
but refuses to do it itself.
It expects the culture
to back it up.
If I have no culture
I can say nothing;
therefore, if I
say nothing,
I have no culture.

I’m Neapolitan

on my father’s side,
Sicilian on my
mother’s side.
After my mother died,
when I was eight years
old, my mother’s people
slowly faded away.
I grew up
in a Neapolitan family,
always silently
defending Sicilians.
(Sicilians were
my sainted mother.)
If I misbehaved
or did something
stupid, it was because
I’m Sicilian.
I don’t remember
ever doing anything
that got me called
Italian. I grew up
thinking Naples
is in Northern Italy.

Sicilians don’t want

me, either.
The few words
of Italian I know
are all Neapolitan.
I’m not serious
enough. I’m not
oppressed enough. I
haven’t been conquered
enough. I’m not Olive
enough. I may as well
be Italian. Don’t say
Neapolitan–say
Italian. Remember
the Renaissance. Remember
how Italy saved Europe
by inventing art
and science. (Don’t say
Florence.) But my guts—
what do I do with my guts?
 
Non-Italians don’t know
what I’m talking about.
They think I’m weird.
They think the only
difference, if
there is any, between
Italians and Sicilians,
is that, unlike Italians
(who aren’t too bright,
either), Sicilians make pizza
the way morons make
wheels.
 
So much for that problem.
Now, maybe I’ve had
some inconveniences
as an Italian,
but if I changed
my name, dropped
the vowel, the barriers
would fall with it.
I’d have nothing
to lose.
If I ever felt
lonely, I could
go to the supermarket
and fill my cart
with cans of
spaghetti and meatballs
and no one would
suspect a thing.
 
Maybe it’s time to take inventory.
I’m a woman.
I’m a contessa
on my father’s side,
contadina on my
mother’s side.
I’ve got a
high school equivalency diploma
and an associate’s degree
in liberal arts.
I’m a skilled blue collar worker.
I’m a published poet.
I’ve got a Brooklyn accent
with Italian gestures.
I’m a dyke.
I’m a single working mother.
All this stuff doesn’t add up to
just
one
person.

Fuck it.

++++++++++

The Fly

Giovanni de’Medici,

the first of the branch
of the Medici family
that produced Lorenzo
who almost single-handedly
produced the renaissance
in Florence,
advised his descendants—
“Be as inconspicuous as possible.”

This guy sounds like my father.

The first 16 years of my life,
I learned only two Neapolitan phrases—
assiettete
and statte zitte.
I’m standing now and I’m speaking.

Lesbians are not womanly enough,

not Madonna or puttana enough,
to be recognized by the Italian-
American community.
Italians are not Olive enough,
not light or dark enough,
to be recognized by the American
Lesbian community.
I’m standing now and I’m speaking
yet I am neither seen nor heard.

I’m a Sicilian-Italian-American Lesbian,

the scum of the scum of the scum,
forgotten by those who scream
in protest because they are
forgotten,
and I am neither seen nor heard.

Sicilians tell their children—
“A fly doesn’t enter a closed mouth.”
I’m standing now and I’m
telling the Sicilians,
the Italians,
and the Lesbians—
You can’t spit a fly
out of a closed mouth.

Neither Seen nor Heard is now available

malafemmina press announces her second book:

Neither Seen nor Heard, poetry by Rose Romano




Neither Seen nor Heard, Romano’s third book of poetry, includes all the poems from Vendetta and The Wop Factor (both published by malafemmina press), plus many poems published in various literary journals and a few published here for the first time.

Rose Romano is an Italian-American living in Italy for several years. In the United States, she published a literary journal, la bella figura, and founded malafemmina press, publishing only the work of Italian-Americans. Her books of poetry (Vendetta and The Wop Factor) and her anthology (La bella figura: a choice, also published by malafemmina press) are included in the collections of many public and university libraries. Her work has been taught at universities in the United States and Canada. She organized and participated in poetry readings and book presentations in the United States, Canada, and Italy.

A copy can be purchased by clicking on:

www.createspace.com/6266104

 

Three books from Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

Tapestry
This is Maria's exploration of the tapestry embroidered from five generations of women and men in her family, from the turn of the twentieth century to its final years, from the poor villages of Italy to the cities of Australia, and back to a nineties Italy that is both alien and home.

Someone you know: A friend’s farewell
A semi-autobiographical book, Someone You Know (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1991; new edition 2002) was Australia's first AIDS biography. All royalties donated to Bobby Goldsmith Foundation for People Living With AIDS.
Love you two
Pina's friends think she's lucky. How many families get along the way hers does - how many parents are as free-spirited and happy as hers? But sometimes Pina wonders who the grown-up is - her or her mother. Then a chance glimpse at an email unravels what Pina thought she knew about life and love. Can her family survive what she has discovered? And what does it all mean for Pina's own life? Two siblings, two boys, two cities, three generations, four friends. How many versions of the truth?

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Dr. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli has gained national and international recognition as a writer, researcher, lecturer and consultant in the issues of cultural diversity, gender diversity, sexual diversity, family diversity, HIV/AIDS, and social diversity in health and education, with a specific focu on adolescence and young people.

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If you’re one of those people (which would be all of us) who belong to more than one category, you’ll find recognition, understanding, and confirmation in Maria’s work.

All three books, and others, are available on Amazon.

You'll never have me like you want me -- is now available

You'll never have me like you want me

by Rose Romano

(ISBN-13: 979-1220009928)

is now available. To purchase a copy, just go to

www.createspace.com/6117360

All the information is there.

CreateSpace, a part of Amazon.com, is the printer/distributor. malafemmina press is the publisher.

From the back cover:

 

When Emilia realizes what Italy means, she decides to keep a journal.

As an Italian-American who lived all her life in Brooklyn, Emilia goes to Italy because she wants to live in the only place in the world where it's normal to be Italian. She doesn't speak Italian well and isn't familiar with the laws. Although she has Italian citizenship, she can't get real help from her psychologist or her social worker. Her life gets smaller and smaller. Her chances get slimmer and slimmer.

The solution to all her problems appears in an unexpected flash.

 

Rose Romano is an Italian-American living in Italy for several years. In the United States, she published a literary journal, la bella figura, and founded malafemmina press, publishing only the work of Italian-Americans. Her books of poetry (Vendetta and The Wop Factor) and her anthology (la bella figura: a choice) are included in the collections of many public and university libraries. Her work has been taught at universities in the United States and Canada. She has organized and participated in poetry readings and book presentations in the United States, Canada, and Italy.

 

The next book (Neither Seen nor Heard) is expected in July.

Struggles in Italy

strugglesinitaly.wordpress.com

 

is a blog dedicated to making available to people, mostly outside Italy, information about “what else” goes on in Italy. The following is from their blog.

 

In recent times, a specific repertoire of images on Italy has dominated international media, presenting a selective, partial and limited image of the country. Examples of this are the controversial views on Italian justice that emerged in the Knox trial, the downgrading of Italian public assets by Standard and Poors and by Moody’s (always presented from the impersonal perspective of the “market”), the despicable image of women fostered by the Italian political class, and, of course, the everlasting pizza, spaghetti, and mafia. However, there is much more going on in Italy, much more that should be getting adequate coverage.

 

In the past two decades Italy has witnessed an increase in social conflict prompted by a variety of political subjects. Trade unions, students, migrants, precarious workers, environmental activists have voiced their right to the future, often giving birth to productive synergies.

However, these movements rarely if ever receive international coverage. We believe that the reasons for this silence are many, and have to do with linguistic limitations, the Italo-centric perspective of some movements, and the biased perspective of mainstream media.

For all these reasons, we decided to initiate Struggles in Italy, a grassroots self-education and information project in languages other than Italian. The project is entirely volunteer-run. We are precarious workers, translators, IT workers, students, researchers, environmentally conscious people, activists, and much more. We come from a variety of backgrounds, in geographical, personal, and political terms. In short, we are active citizens committed to improve the world we live in, and more specifically Italy, our country of residence or of origin.

Struggles in Italy’s blog is a dictionary of Italian struggles, a place that hosts news and deeper reflections. We cover political activism, education, culture, the environment, workers’ and community struggles, the mafia, the media and mainstream politics. Struggles is also a collective of volunteer writers, a transnational community of workers, students and researchers living in different parts of the world. We all share the aim to show Italian reality, made of struggling people. We’ve made local struggles much more visible so they can be studied and sense can be made of them. Our perspective is indipendent from mainstream media. We have the blog, a Twitter account and a Pinterest board. Our main language is English, but we wrote also in French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. We’re keen to expand our output beyond English. We’re looking for new people to work on writing or editing articles, translating them into other languages, reporting from the field and much more. Enthusiasm and expertise are both appreciated – in any language. Join us, share our message and spread the voice about the project.

Our email is strugglesinitaly@gmail.com

The Family Dialect

Here's one of the poems that will be in my new book, Neither Seen nor Heard.
I'm hoping the book will be available at Amazon.com and other online stores by July 2016.


The Family Dialect


1962
Skinny, big-eyed girl, long
black braids and a face
that always looked unclean,
backed into a corner by
the popular girls. Columbus
didn’t discover America,
their fingers in her chest
and their wisdom in her eyes.
Only Italians would be
stupid enough to go west to
get east and discover a
country already discovered—
must be where the expression
ass backwards comes from.
Nowadays, everybody knows
Leif Ericson discovered America.

1972

Times change.

Time markers change

with the times.
Everyone’s singing
their unsung heroes.
Everyone’s got a button
but me. I picked a fine
time to be Italian—it was
either Columbus or Al Capone.
I should have picked Capone.

1982

The immigrant Northern Italian
lesbian is not Italian-American.
She’s a real Italian, not like
third-generation Southern Italians
and Sicilians, who remain savages
to this day, who never developed
beyond dialect to language.
The American lesbians sympathize
with me—I lost my culture
when my family made me speak

English because they were

ashamed of the family dialect.

The politically correct lesbians share

their Columbus poems, never dreaming

of the tortured logic of ignorance and

bigotry that made Columbus a hero
to Southern Italian/Sicilian-
Americans, torture I bring to
bed with me every night.

1992

Now they’re reading their

Columbus poems at women-only
dances, to raise consciousness,
boldly proclaiming the truth,
not afraid to call Columbus
an oppressor even though
he wasn’t a wasp, because
this isn’t about wop bashing,
because they’re organizing
dances to help indigenous peoples
not to condemn wops, and if I
don’t understand how it helps
they can’t explain it, and even
a question becomes an accusation,
because they’re not about to give
up the land of opportunity bought
for them by the blood shed by
Columbus’ followers, not about
to go back to the countries their
own grandparents were starving in.
I tell them I don’t follow Columbus,
don’t follow a Northerner with his hands
in his pockets—nothing to say
and money to hide—and they remind
me that Italian-Americans are the only
people in America to be presented
honestly in the history books they
read in school, remind me I should
accept my share of the guilt, proud
to be able to admit their bigotry,
their greatest achievement, dancing
on the graves of indigenous peoples,
and just when being Italian-American
wasn’t so embarrassing anymore, it got
embarrassing again.

October

Does it matter to anyone here that
Columbus was a Northerner at
a time when there was no Italy?
Does it matter to anyone here
that Northerners have oppressed
Southerners and Sicilians in Italy,
in the United States, then, now
and forever? Does it matter to
anyone here that the overwhelming
majority of Italian-Americans are
Southerners and Sicilians?

They tell me not to explain things
in my poems. But without
an explanation they won’t
know. Without an explanation,
they don’t have to know.

 Now I’ve gotten a petition in

the mail to protest the quincentennial
celebrations signed by Italian
name after Italian name after
Italian name.

Does it matter to anyone here

that Columbus was Jewish?

Does it matter to anyone here

that Jews aren’t running to
apologize the way Italian-
Americans are? Does it matter
to anyone here that Italian-
Americans are so easy to shame
while others have too much
self-respect to fall for such
crap?

Now I’ve gotten an invitation
in the mail to a glittery
dinner and dance celebrating
someone whose gall and
insensitivity made him the
focal point of irrational and
misplaced pride at $150 a plate.

Does it matter to anyone here

that I come from a culture
as old as the beginning of the
world? Does it matter to anyone
here that I come from a culture
stolen by people who don’t know
what it’s worth? Does it matter
to anyone here that my best chance
of ethnic pride is to rip off my
skin and roll in salt?

Santa Rosalia, more over.

I’m coming to join you.

At least until the end

of the month.