In the acknowledgements of her most recent book, Tina Biello thanks her “parents and ancestors whose stories live inside of me” (69), and for whom her work exists. Biello was born in British Columbia to Italian immigrant parents, who imbued Biello’s upbringing with their traditions. A poet, playwright, and actress, Biello has published several poetry collections, including In the Bone Cracks of the Walls (Leaf Press, 2014), A Housecoat Remains (Guernica Editions, 2015), and Playing into Silence (Caitlin Press, 2018), all of which draw heavily on her experiences. She served as poet laureate of Nanaimo from 2017 to 2020, and credits her language skills to a lifetime of “being from two places.”
Biello’s fourth published poetry collection, The Weight of Survival (Caitlin Press, 2024), grapples with the difficulties that immigrant families face when simultaneously maintaining strong ties to their own culture and adapting to new surroundings. A child of Italian immigrants, Biello provides her readers with many avenues through which to access the experience of enduring these difficulties. Embracing the stories of the family members that have come before her, Biello takes it upon herself to ensure that her family’s culture will live on, as the title suggests—both she and her creative work will bear the weight of its survival.
The poems are preceded by an author’s note wherein Biello explains that the Italian words in her poetry are written in her village’s dialect: il dialetto di Casacalenda. The use of the Casacalenda dialect serves to locate from where Biello is writing, identifying the root of her family and their experiences. As she notes, “people can tell which town you come from as soon as you speak” (9), and this sort of categorization allows for specificity. Biello writes not only from the perspective of an Italian, but of a Casacalendan. The attempt to replicate the language on paper is daunting, for given that dialects are spoken, there are multiple ways to spell the same word, none of which is officially right or wrong. Nevertheless, Biello comes “as close to capturing the sound” as possible (9), representing her dialect and her culture in a similar fashion. Though she did not experience the life of an immigrant, she was privy to her family’s stories, allowing them—and the Casacalenda dialect—to take on a new form in her own work.
Biello notably chooses to begin retelling her family’s story not when they arrive in Canada, but when they are still in Italy. The first poem in the collection is entitled “Sixty-four years ago, my father did not board the boat to Halifax,” the first line serving as the title of the poem itself. The following lines reading: “Instead he grabbed an espresso at the café at the dock in Napoli, / turned and headed home” (10). The initial presentation of her family is not as Italian Canadians, but purely as Italians: a reminder that their lives are split in two—between the old and the new. These two lives, however, bleed into one another, and this connection forms the immigrant experience. By the time of Biello’s reflection, her father is an elderly man, “too old now to take back all the killing in his life” (11), but still young enough to remember and share stories of it with future generations. For better or for worse, Biello’s father passes his experiences onto his daughter so that they may continue to live within her.
The collection grapples with a child’s understanding, or lack thereof, of their genesis, and explores the ways in which this understanding shifts and grows as the child ages. Writing about her time as an elementary school student, Biello remarks that “The Anglo kids couldn’t answer the question, where do you come from? I knew exactly where I came from, what stories were mine and that I was Italian first, Canadian second” (13). Biello, like her parents, is caught between two identities, though this split manifests in different ways for different generations. Despite being one of few Italian children in her school, Biello describes how tightly she clung to her family’s culture, which allowed her to become an adult who is capable of carrying Italian traditions into her future.
Biello gracefully brings together the past and the present to create a meaningful presentation of her family life. In the midst of her present reflection on her culture, Biello acknowledges: “I’ve been writing this poem for centuries” (16) and she knows that the poetry did not start with her alone. Instead, it began in the hands of “Gli immigrati who ended up wet and cold / by the promise of a new life, a better paycheque” (16), who sacrificed—like Biello’s own parents—to provide for future generations, and furthermore, for their poetry. Biello’s family have passed along their poetry, and in this collection, she parses out not only what that means for her alone, but what that means for the future of this family poetry. Knowing that their “language digs gardens, builds sheds, makes wine” (33), Biello is aware of the weight of the task at hand, but is nevertheless willing to take on the challenge of carrying on the legacy of her family’s culture. Given the care she has received in hearing her parents’ stories, she has care to give back when continuing to write the poem that has been in progress for generations, hopefully to further its longevity for many more to come.
The later poems in the collection reflect on loss, particularly that of Biello’s grandfather, who posthumously passes a message along to her: “That night he comes to me in the dreamtime. / Go. / I ask you. / Be with her” (59). Biello’s grandfather instructs her to watch over her grandmother in his absence, and once she, too, passes, Biello is left with further responsibility: to keep the memories and traditions of her grandparents alive. The speaker of a poem entitled “Advice to the Poet” instructs the reader to stop and listen to salmon swimming, for “They are remembering their way home” (46). Much like the salmon, the reader-poet must make their own way home, doing so by means of poetic creation. For Biello, the act of writing poetry is a method through which she can guide not only herself, but her ancestors, home. This context defines “home” as not merely a physical location, but an overall feeling of belonging and community. By continuing to keep her ancestors and their stories alive, Biello is remembering her way home over and over again.
Julia Bifulco holds an MA in English Literature from McGill University. Her research focuses on representations of sisterhood in Victorian women’s poetry. She lives in Montreal.
