FEILE-FESTA is a multicultural journal of literary and visual arts, both print and online, published by the Mediterranean Celtic Cultural Association.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

On a summer trip to Donegal, my wife and I found her grandfather’s farm house, then followed the road signs, written in Gaelic, which led to the awesome cliffs. We still remember the sounds of the uileann pipes and the Bodhran Celtic drum wafting through the pub door, a place where the villagers gathered for conversation and fun, craic as the Irish would say. While traveling around Sicily with my family another summer, I saw with the eyes of an adult and a child and found it’s true, e vero, what Goethe had once written: “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the key to everything.” My reactions seemed to mirror the poet, while I explored the lone Temple of Segesta, the Kalsa section of Palermo, the baroque buildings of Noto, the faces of old fishermen and belle donne, and tasted Sicily’s multicultural cuisine.

After living or working in all five boroughs, I could argue that New York City is the key to America. The mosaic motif has been invoked many times about this metropolis because there are so many ethnic and racial groups living together, yet it should also refer to the many shared heritages, whether found in a direct family line or through marriage. When my Sicilian grandparents settled in this city, the foreign population was approximately 40% and the “big apple” is once again approaching that same percentage. In this global city these immigrant children will get to know the great-grandchildren of that other mass migration, whose own faces reveal mixed cultures, even in my own children.

In the end, Feile-Festa is written for everyone to enjoy even if your family heritage has nothing to do with the focus of this journal – all you need is a spirit of enthusiasm to appreciate the words that are sung on these pages, just as you don’t have to be Italian to love opera, or Irish to love a ballad, or African-American to love jazz. Feile-Festa, the Irish and Italian words for festival, hopes to affirm the spirit of the words of Emerson that “Life is a festival.” All we have to do is open our eyes to notice what is beautiful in life.

- Frank Polizzi