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WEBSITE REVIEW: Contemporary Italian American Writing www.italianamericanwriters.com This month I would like to take a break from my usual book review and review a website about Italian American writers, Contemporary Italian American Writing. I did a brief review of this website in the past but would like to do a more extensive review this month. Contemporary Italian American Writing is one of the few websites devoted to modern Italian American writers that is updated on a regular basis and remains a vital source of information for those interested in Italian American writing. Daniela Gioseffi, a fine writer herself and winner of The John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, edits the site. She has recently published Blood Autumn (Autunno di sangue) a collection of selected and new poems in a bilingual edition. She also edits Poets USA.com and NJPoets.com. Contemporary Italian American Writers also has an excellent advisory board, consisting of such notable writers and scholars as Alfredo de Palchi, Anthony J. Tamburri, Felix Stefanile, Peter Covino, Mary Ann Mannino, Donna Masini, Luigi Fontanella, Dorothy Barresi, Emanuel di Pasquale. You may want to search for some of their writing online. Contemporary Italian American Writers is also the home of the Bordighera Poetry Prize. The prize "is dedicated to finding the best manuscripts of poetry in English by an American poet of Italian descent." The manuscript is translated into modern Italian, "for the benefit of American poets of Italian ancestry and the preservation of the Italian language." The winner for 2007 is Tony Magistrale's manuscript What She Says About Love and several of the poems appear on the website. Magistrale's poems present the reader with strong, visual imagery that leads to personal reflection and meditation. For example, in "Train South of Bari," he writes, The train sifted through four hours of dense, pasty Milanese rain. South of Florence, broke into rolling Tuscan hills, yellowtop fields of mustard, spliced red poppies, almond blossoms like fresh wet snow. This is the land my grandfather left for artic winds of Buffalo. I have returned to the gnarled and knotty olive and fig groves of Apulia long abandoned in pursuit of second chance dreams. The website also contains an archive of work by modern Italian American writers where one can read poems, essays, reviews and excerpts from longer works. The selected authors are presented with a brief biography and review of their work followed by representative texts. The reader will find selected passages from Living with the Dead, a memoir by Fred L. Gardaphe; a biographical essay on John Ciardi, the famous poet and translator of Dante's work, by Edward Cifelli; the poems of Luigi Fontanella translated into English by Michael Palma; and much more contemporary writing. The different pieces on the site present a variety and diversity of voices from nostalgic to radical. Of particular interest on the website is Gioseffi's 2002 editorial "What Would Your Dead Immigrant Father Say About The World According to Tony Soprano " Gioseffi criticizes the popular television series The Sopranos for several reasons. She writes, "The over-riding issue regarding The Sopranos--and I think that Michael Parenti, professor of history and sociology at UCLA, author of Make Believe Media would agree--is that "The Sopranos" takes attention away from the big, white-collar crime of the majority culture like the S & L Scandal or Enron debacle in which the Bushes were involved." She also is offended by the stereotypes it presents of Italian Americans: "The Sopranos seduces as it demeans and stereotypes Italian Americans who are overwhelmingly nothing like this family in crime and violence." Using the interactive nature of the World Wide Web, Gioseffi's essay is linked to a series of letters and opinions to her critique of the show, including a full response by Aldo Tambellini, artist and writer. The reader can even submit his response to Gioseffi's essay. On Contemporary Italian American Writers, one will also find Juliet Ucelli's speech on Sacco and Vanzetti. It is a speech that challenges Italian Americans to draw connections between Sacco and Vanzetti's unfair and unjust trial to "the Arabs, Muslims and South Asians who are being held without any Constitutional rights for supposed association with terrorists . . . and . . . Mumia Abu Jamal, the former Black Panther, journalist and exposer of the crimes of the Philadelphia Police Department who was railroaded and faces the death penalty for supposedly killing a Philadelphia police officer . . ." You may or may not agree with Ucelli's points of view, but her speech will get a reaction from any reader and lead to much discussion. Contemporary Italian American Writers also contains a page of links to literary and cultural Italian American websites. There are links to The Sons of Italy, Italian American Studies at The State University of New York, Italica Press (Italian writers in English translation), Italian American Books, and other sites of interest. While one may not agree with or approve of all the writers on this website, overall, Contemporary American Writers provides those interested in modern Italian American writers with a good starting point that will lead to many more fruitful discoveries. Italian Catholic Federation, 8393 Capwell Drive, Suite 110, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE