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.