Cover art: At the Ionian Sea by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Maria Mazziotti Gillan is one of the most significant voices of contemporary Italian American poetry, capable of interpreting with passion and disenchantment the complex emotional situation of those who live their identity in the balance between Italy and the United States. Thanks to this Italian translation, Gillan tells her story in Poems from Italy in the two languages in that she loves. With a singular narrative figure that characterizes the verses, we encounter the country of her parents and those who populated Paterson and the ethnic neighborhood where she grew up in working-class New Jersey in the 1950s.
Far from the nostalgic re-enactment of a mythical Italy, these reflections - at times overwhelmed by the magical sensation of being one step away from some unexpected epiphany - take stock with extraordinary energy and profound tenderness on what it means today to be Italian in America and American in Italy.
Winner of the 2008 American Book Award with her collection All That Lies Between Us, Gillan founded and directs the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey. Gillan's newest poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow, and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets, a pairing of her poems with her paintings. She is the Editor of the prestigious Paterson Literary Review, which she founded in 1979, Bartle Professor and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University-SUNY. Maria has also dedicated herself to painting for many years. She lives in Hawthorne, New Jersey, in a house full of paintings and colors. Maria's artist website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.
Carla Francellini is a professor of Anglo-American Literature and Literary Translation at the Department of Philology and Criticism of Ancient and Modern Literature at the University of Siena. In her research, she deals with Italian-American literature and has published numerous essays and articles both in Italy and abroad. She is the editor and translator of Uè Paisà. and she founded the Miraggi (Artemide) series in 2019, dedicated to Italian-American literature. She is the author of the monograph Visible / Invisible, Forays into contemporary Italian American fiction (2018), co-editor of the Re-Mapping Italian America volumes. Places, Cultures, Identities (2018) and Mother Cabrini. and Reflections on the Migrations of Yesterday and Today (2023).
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