Writings

– For Len Gasparini I could have mumbled a poem at you Easily yet the mornings bring a batter up That knows little of what a true Arm presses from pectoralis to wrist Twisting ahead of a nervous bat Quickly      adjusting But my eyes    if you look    know Nothing Like the sound that whips by my ear My arm a clipping sailing cutter No one hears This is not poetry    this is the manner By which I begin and end The poem yours   homerun Slammed back from a 90 foot…

I’ve never visited Grace Street, but draft an image from my mother’s stories. The brick is brownish-yellow; a leafless skeleton of ivy radiates in snow. Neighbour noises leak into the front lawn—the rattle of a gate rammed shut, followed by ma va fa’un— chicka-dee-dee-dee splitting through street, trash and compost huddle on the curb. Slabs of concrete escort you past roses choked out by frost and capsizing into white grass, past the blue birdhouse nailed to tree by my great uncle who came here in fifty-nine, past the screen door…

Fiorello La Guardia, the larger-than-life mayor of New York City, was the big draw at the Third National Conference of…

That autumn there was such a simple elegance to my own devastation that I didn’t think anybody else needed to…

While the earliest wave of Italian immigration to Alberta between 1896 and 1914 largely comprised labourers, there were skilled individuals…

SAPLING Sunday mornings, Mom attends mass at St. Ambrose Church while Dad takes me to High Park where I play…

“Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.” (Italian proverb)   Monday, 9 a.m. Not writing. Dim, dreary…