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"No lines sector off the sky so high above, though all the nations of the Earth be bound about with borders."

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  • Commentary – Who am I to Speak to You of Italy

    This article is the promised commentary on: “Who am I to Speak to You of Italy“, which I wrote in April. In part a commentary recognises that our words never really leave us. They travel along with us and reveal new unimagined meanings and inspire new departures as they speak to us from memory. Much is communicated in Who am I to Speak … by allusion; and many unwritten and written words lie under those that were set down, and a commentary may enrich communication. However, it is not necessary to read the commentary and you may choose not to do so, as commentary (even by writer) may also confine…

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    Lingering in Limbo: Dante’s Inferno

    June 28, 2019
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    September 24, 2018
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    November 1, 2018
  • Who Am I to Speak to You of Italy?

    Who am I to speak to you of Italy? Chi sono io, per parlarvi dell’Italia? Who, for more than 50 years have lived in silence, far beyond her shores. Chi sono io, per parlarvi dell’Italia? Chi, per più di cinquant’anni ha vissuto in silenzio, lontano dalle sue sponde. Yet, such words do not belong to me alone. “Italian Americans are invisible people.” Fred Gardaphé writes, “Not because people refuse to see them, but because, for the most part, they refuse to be seen.” Even here, across an ocean, truth resonates in his words. And as he knows, being forgotten has a price. A price paid with the coins of self-forgetting.…

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    Bust of Shakespeare in Verona at the tomb of Giulietta

    It’s funny, but Shakespeare is teaching me Italian stories

    February 5, 2023

    Dante Alighieri in a Wide Brown Land*

    March 25, 2020

    Othello and Desdemona: An Italian novella of murder and manipulation

    February 10, 2024
  • Maria Famà – “I will not check the box for white on any form”

    Maria Famà’s poem “I Am Not White” lives in the folded places between two worlds. Through her Italian-American eyes we see her lived experience of America’s hyper-racialised culture. The central dynamic of the poem is a box on a form. A box which, in truth, demands a lie. For her stories do not belong. The convenience which in America goes with the claim is too uncomfortable. The price is too high for Maria Famà. “I will not check the box for white on any form.” Her reflections go further for her words reminds us that the Mediterranean, where Sicily (and Italy) is found, is not only a European sea. Its…

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    June 5, 2011

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    March 12, 2015
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    The Anti-Immigration Era: What is going on in the United States?

    July 19, 2011
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