The Poetry of Rose Romano

The following is from an article called “Italian American Poetry Today: An Appreciation in Progress” by George Guida. You can find the whole article on the internet.

“. . . one whose work I place at the center of Italian American poetry, is Rose Romano. . . .she is one of the least visible Italian American poets, but is, at her best, one of the most indispensable. Her Italian American poems, most of which appear in the nearly forgotten 1994 collection The Wop Factor,* cover nearly all facets of Italian American culture and life, especially of life for Italian American women. Poems like “Dago Street” and “Breaking Legs” register the injustice of anti-Italian discrimination in America, as well as Italian Americans’ continuing lament over the depiction of Italian Americans in the media. Other poems like “Ethnic Woman” and “There is Nothing in This World as Wonderful as an Italian American Lesbian” celebrate Italian (and all) ethnicity, as well as its inflections in contemporary gender roles and non-traditional public gender roles and sexual orientation. Perhaps her most important contribution to Italian American poetry is a long poem entitled “Wop Talk,” which explores the consciousness of ethnic identity in contemporary America, a theme I see at the heart of Italian American art, studies and life today.

The range of the poem, and of Romano’s Italian American poetry in general, is remarkable, as is her skill (especially with line breaks in this poem), honesty, and uncanny insight into the negotiation between Italian Americans and “Americans.”

*The Wop Factor is available as part of the collection Neither Seen nor Heard. If you're interested, write to me at malafemmina.press@yahoo.com.