{"id":1261,"date":"2019-11-15T19:29:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T19:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/italianamericana.ysu.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2019-11-15T19:29:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T19:29:15","slug":"ned-balbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/?p=1261","title":{"rendered":"Ned Balbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Song I Sing and the Book I Read\u201d:
\nBecoming Italian American<\/strong><\/p>\n

In \u201cMy Father\u2019s Music\u201d (Our Roots Are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays by Italian-American Writers<\/em>, Other Press, 2006), I examined the history of my adoptive father Carmine\u2019s favorite songs and performers, plus the reasons why, prior to my teen years, I\u2019d never felt his heritage was my own. One reason was how I looked: my German-Polish features are hard to construe as southern Italian; by contrast, Dad (whose forebears originated in Salerno) looked like a less severe version of the actor Dominic Chianese (whose roots are also in Campania, the Internet informs me). But another reason was the woman I knew as my mother: Betty, the daughter of Polish immigrants and the subject of two poems in this issue.<\/p>\n

My adoptive parents viewed ethnicity, including their own respective backgrounds, like many of their generation: unthinkingly, through the lens of stereotypes. Born in the New York area roughly a century ago (see \u201cFor a Mother Born During the Great War\u201d) and older than most parents I knew, the couple had met at a gas station while Harry Truman was president. Neither had attended high school, but it was Carmine who struggled to tame unstable letters, words, and numerals. A plumber by profession and an undiagnosed dyslexic, he\u2019d lament, \u201cI\u2019m not a bookkeeper,\u201d his personal shorthand for the deficits that limited his advancement.<\/p>\n

To discourage me from identifying as Italian, Betty told me that I looked like her<\/em> side of the family, expressed repugnance for certain foods (aglio olio<\/em> in particular\u2014this from someone who cheerfully served up dinners of pigs\u2019 feet or pigs\u2019 knuckles), and otherwise implied that \u201cItalians\u201d were coarse or vulgar. Trivial quarrels had estranged her from her husband\u2019s family, so for several crucial years, I didn\u2019t see them at all. But regardless of these factors, I didn\u2019t feel Polish either\u2014especially when she and my grandmother vanished into their common tongue, sharing secrets that shut out Carmine and myself. (\u201cA New Moon for Neptune\u201d looks at the violence and abandonment in Betty\u2019s early life.)<\/p>\n

In Carmine\u2019s family, there was no Jennifer Melfi (the fictional psychiatrist portrayed by Lorraine Bracco on The Sopranos<\/em>)\u2014no polished professional drawn into dinnertime debate over Italian American stereotypes. My father\u2019s six siblings were earthy, working-class people: friendly, loud, funny, argumentative, and welcoming, the brothers prone to years-long feuds in ever-shifting permutations; still, they never conveyed the tensions rippling from my mother\u2019s side. Though born in the US, they spiced their talk with Old World slang, the distortions of dialect and distance baffling me for years: mannaggia, madonn,\u2019<\/em> cafone<\/em> and other expressions, quite a few ill-suited for inclusion here. I learned early\u2014from Carmine and Betty, who picked up some of her husband\u2019s phrases\u2014that I was a total capo tost\u2019<\/em> when I set my mind to something: utterly stubborn in my refusal to take advice or change direction. In this way, Italian American culture (the blue-collar variety) found its way into the atmosphere around me.<\/p>\n

So did Italian music. When Uncle Joe installed an eight-track tape deck in Dad\u2019s car, it meant that every time we rode together, I heard his favorite artists: the big bands, of course, but also Al Martino, Jerry Vale, and, especially, Tony Bennett. Dad played the organetto, the diatonic button accordion of southern Italian tradition, so all my life, unwittingly, I\u2019d listened to Italian music (\u201cThe Woodpecker Song\u201d\u2014\u201cReginella Campagnola\u201d or \u201cLittle Country Queen\u201d\u2014 was my favorite as a kid; Dad\u2019s was \u201cYou\u2019re My Everything,\u201d a song first recorded by the Victor Arden-Phil Ohman Orchestra in 1931 and often covered by other artists, including pianist Carmen Cavallero). A poem in my first book, Galileo\u2019s Banquet<\/em>, recounts a dream that Carmine had about playing with Glenn Miller (oddly, the trumpet, not the accordion), and in \u201cA Word the Romans Used,\u201d a poem that appears in the August 2016 issue of First Things<\/em>, I wrote once more about Dad\u2019s playing, his family nickname (\u201cCarmen\u201d), and his affection for Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se as the saint to whom he prayed.<\/p>\n

Years after those tape deck days, I would realize that Betty\u2019s wish for me to embrace her Polish background arose because she was raising the son of her half-sister Elaine: Betty felt more like my \u201creal\u201d mother by selectively reinforcing one part of my actual heritage: the part we shared. In college, my view of Italian culture widened. I would discover John Ciardi\u2019s translation of The Divine Comedy<\/em>. I would view Italian Renaissance paintings in reproductions or at the Met. I would see films by Antonioni, Bertolucci, and Fellini. Yet my deepest connection to Italy is the memory of Carmine, featured in three poems that first appeared in Italian Americana,<\/em> including \u201cThe Sugar Thief,\u201d currently posted at the Poetry Foundation website.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Maria Terrone, and former poetry editors Dana Gioia and Michael Palma, for welcoming my work to these pages.<\/p>\n

For a Mother Born During the Great War<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too soon they leave us. But, in time, our dead,
\nlives measured by the anniversaries
\nwe honor or forget, accept release
\nand offer it to us. One day, instead
\nof adding one more year to those they had,
\nwishing them back to life, we realize
\nthe sum exceeds a lifetime; and we freeze
\nat what we\u2019ve always known: life\u2019s limited,
\nand less than what we\u2019re owed, or think we\u2019re owed.<\/p>\n

I hear you sometimes\u2014do you hear me, too?
\n\u2014Voices reciprocal, lost time renewed
\nas if, still at the woods\u2019 edge, out of view,
\nI heard you call at midday from the flood
\nof all that followed, and I answered you.<\/p>\n

A New Moon for Neptune<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEvery pupil should keep the weekly lessons in a note book. Attractive covers
\nlike this may be secured from THE NEWS OUTLINE for 5 cents each.
\nThese lessons make a permanent text.\u201d
\n\u2013From inside the cover designed to hold issues of
\nThe News Outline (My Weekly Reader)<\/em>, 1929-1930<\/p>\n

I wonder if you looked up at the sky,
\nthe blank moon visible, My Weekly Reader<\/em>\u2019s
\nnews of Pluto orbiting the sun
\nalive in memory? You couldn\u2019t sleep\u2014
\nThe thought\u2014There\u2019s more out there?<\/em> How much, how far?<\/em>\u2014
\nhad touched you even in a spartan schoolroom
\nwhere the three R\u2019s ruled and you excelled,
\nthough history had seemed a waste of time\u2014
\n\u201cWho wants to learn about dead people?\u201d you\u2019d scoffed
\nonce to your teacher, pleased to recollect
\nhow your rebellion only made her laugh.
\nMostly, she loved you, and, mostly, you were good,
\nor so your eighth grade store of weekly issues,
\nsaved for forty years, seemed to suggest,
\nbound in the pamphlet cover you\u2019d unfastened
\nevery week to add the new week\u2019s news.<\/p>\n

You first produced this relic of your youth
\nwhen I rushed in, surprised at time\u2019s long arc,
\nto tell you Pluto wasn\u2019t always known,
\nsome reference guide or world almanac
\nmy source for facts and sudden revelation.<\/p>\n

\u2744<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why today\u2019s news makes me think of you\u2014
\nAnother errant traveler in the sky
\nsifted from space debris and Hubble-glare
\nhas made its debut: Neptune\u2019s newest moon,
\nanonymous for now, but not for long.
\nDidn\u2019t Pluto, too, rise from the dark,
\nunknown and nameless in the first reports?
\nWho changed that on a whim?
\nAcross the world,
\nan Oxford schoolgirl younger than you were
\nhad fancied Planet X a kind of hell\u2014
\ndistant, devoid of joy. She said to Granddad,
\nbookish don, friend to astronomers,
\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t they call it \u2018Pluto\u2019?\u201d and they did.
\nMore than an ocean separated you\u2014
\nIn time, she grew up, wed, became a teacher,
\nwho\u2019d have been displeased to hear a pupil
\nscoff at history\u2019s reach.
\nNow I think:
\nanother forty years have come and gone,
\nbut who will hear your<\/em> story, listen close,
\nor scoff because the dead don\u2019t matter now?
\nThe same girl who remembered what she\u2019d learned\u2014
\nthat teenage girl whose hand touched every page\u2014
\nfrom German airships to Mount Rushmore\u2019s granite
\ndrilled and dynamited, taking shape\u2014
\ncouldn\u2019t let go of time preserved in newsprint:
\nproof of who she\u2019d been before time\u2019s passing
\nchanged her into you\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2744<\/strong><\/p>\n

That sleepless night
\nyou sat alone, the stars framed by a window,
\nin this \u201chome\u201d lost in Long Island\u2019s dark\u2014
\nNo home for you among those daughters orphaned
\nor discarded for some small defiance,
\nmortal lapse, unwelcome frailty\u2014
\nWhat violence did they suffer and survive?
\n\u2014As you\u2019d survived: cast off by your own mother
\nwhen you dared to speak of your assault,
\nshoved out of sight. Wronged by another wrong.<\/p>\n

But somehow you believed the world held more\u2014
\nits lunar light and blackness filled with planets,
\nstars, and yet, not filled, the space so vast
\nand dark, planets could hide there\u2014Pluto, too\u2014
\nand all seemed charged with wonder, light revealed
\nwhen, finally, you were free to learn which joys
\nawaited you and which you\u2019d never know,
\nthe treasured keepsake open in your hands,
\nyour childhood kept close on each fragile leaf
\nwhere time stopped, yet resumed each time you read
\nthose pages to become yourself, again.<\/p>\n

For Betty, 1916-1977<\/p>\n

Wren<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ames, Iowa<\/p>\n

The countdown\u2019s under way, your flight\u2019s departure
\nsooner than we\u2019d like, but our routine\u2019s
\nsmall pleasures shape our days\u2026And so, returned
\nfrom one last grocery trip, I turn the key<\/p>\n

when you glimpse, down the hall, a small winged creature
\ntrapped against bright glass. What led this wren\u2019s
\ndead reckoning astray? Tiny, determined
\nto escape, he flutters, falls away,<\/p>\n

caught in the stairwell window where the future
\nseals him, stuck in place. Now we\u2019re his means
\nto freedom, maybe, if he\u2019s not too stunned.
\nI curl my palm around him, very gently<\/p>\n

lift him from the sill. No blood or fracture
\nevident, he squirms, uneasy, tense\u2014
\nlike us, when after jobless months I found
\nwork out of state. We don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll stay<\/p>\n

or when I\u2019ll leave, the fragile architecture
\nof our lives in doubt, like all our plans\u2014
\nWe\u2019re traveling through unfamiliar land,
\nand yet, we\u2019re lucky, like this wren today,<\/p>\n

rescued when he resigned himself to capture\u2014
\nFrail, rust-brown, he\u2019ll have a second chance.
\nBut as we reach the lobby, one split-second
\nfrom the door, he makes his getaway,<\/p>\n

slips from the grasp he simply can\u2019t endure,
\nscrapes tile, then takes flight through the open entrance\u2014
\nthankless, free. Must every visit end
\nsadly, too soon? Our wren crashed helplessly,<\/p>\n

unharmed, on unseen glass, a force of nature
\nfurious, compressed\u2026If there are omens,
\nsigns it\u2019s possible to understand,
\nwe\u2019ll watch for them: together, separately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Song I Sing and the Book I Read\u201d: Becoming Italian American In \u201cMy Father\u2019s Music\u201d (Our Roots Are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays by Italian-American Writers, Other Press, 2006), I examined the history of my adoptive father Carmine\u2019s favorite songs and performers, plus the reasons why, prior to my teen years, … <\/p>\n

+ Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-poets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}