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Journal of Italian Translation
being treated poorly as an immigrant, held a great sense of history
and patriotism for both Italy and the United States. It is an amazing
poem that captures the many contradictions and tensions that
we see in her father’s immigrant status: though Americans “spit
at him / on the street, called him / ‘Dago, Guinea, Wop, Gangster,”
on Columbus Day, Arturo came out proud of America and
Italy’s contribution to its being “the best and most beautiful country
in the world.” Yet the irony of it all is evident: “And in this
year of political correctness, / when I am asked to sign a petition /
written by Italian American Writers // boycotting Columbus, I
am angry.” She has finally come to terms with her own identity
and now the association with a figure integral to that identity has
to be questioned. Now she has to feel ashamed...again. This exemplifies
how everything comes full circle in this book. For not only
does she “learn to love” herself, but in some of the poems, she
notices how she has taken on the roles of her parents and how her
children see her in the same awkward light in which she had
viewed them.
What strikes the reader is that, even considering the content
and themes of the collection, Mazziotti Gillan’s sentimentality is
natural, not contrived. One never has the feeling that she is overromanticizing
events. The pain is real and the joy is never schmaltzy.
One poem that comes to mind is “Brushing My Mother’s Hair.”
Here, Mazziotti Gillan delicately reveals a private moment, easily
moving the reader with her words. Yet, where she could have
indulged in overstatement, it is precisely her understatement that
gives the poem a sense of balance and composure. In a world full
of insufferable insincerity and over-dramatization, this poetry is
refreshing and inspiring. I am thinking also, for example, of the
poet’s treatment of the integral and symbolic role of bread in the
Italian family in “Learning Grace.” In this poem, her language is
typically essential, simple and somehow still magical. Likewise,
her similes seem age-old even though she may have just coined
them, as in “Secrets”: “In my family, we never told secrets, our
lives / hidden like the undersides of leaves.”
I have written little of Elisabetta Marino, who, in addition to
translating the poetry, wrote a thoughtful dual-language preface
to the collection. Perhaps this is because she is the ideal, unobtrusive
translator. Marino’s translations are literal without losing their
correctness or appropriateness, and for this reason, there are only
two minor instances where the translation appears weak. In “Grow-