FEILE-FESTA
Spring 2006
Poetry
Eritrea My Ithaca
- L. Calio
Escape
- P. Corso
Losing a Country
- M. C. Delea
Inclined
- EF Di Giorgio
A Sicilian in Potter’s Field
- G. Fagiani
a color called family
- J. Farina
The Past
- M. M. Gillan
Don’t Speak
- D. Gioseffi
Sharkia
- G. Hanoch
The Old Blatherskites
- T.S. Kerrigan
Seal Woman’s Lament
- C. Loetscher
Barefoot
- C. Lovin
L'amara Primavera
- Q. Marrone
Understudy
- L. A. Moseman
Brooklyn and America
- F. Polizzi
Death of Brahan Seer
- T. Reevy
For Sean Sexton
- T. Sexton
The City at the Center of the World
- A. Verga
Right Angles
- R. Viscusi
Agrigento
- J. Wells
FEILE-FESTA
Spring 2006
Prose
No Matter How Far
- L. Dolan
Ireland and Sicily: Two Islands
- E. Farinella
Southern Exposure
- M. Lisella
Because She Was
- J. O’Loughlin
Flying
- P. Schoenwaldt
Review of DANCES WITH LUIGI
- T. Zeppetella
FEATURED ARTIST
Melissa Kennedy
BIOGRAPHIES
Contributors
BROOKLYN AND AMERICA IN THE SAME BREATH I I was eating in a Park Slope restaurantcalled al di la – on the other side from the international city of chic, while sitting on a wooden pew from some lost Protestant church, a condominium now. I looked out the plate glass to the two-storied street, a typical block in Brooklyn , a former city where myriad ethnic and racial groups gathered. we were all terrone in the eyes of the nativists who overlorded the masses of Ellis, spreading bodies over the states, the rest jammed here into enclaves we sweated from, breathing heavily and gasping. we existed for those who came before, struggling to realize new dreams for our children. II When the migration started to the suburbsand whereabouts as far as California , Brooklyn became buried in the rubble of discontent, so much so we swore no one cared for this place. I dreamt of railroad houses of bricks without mortar – crumbling, the debris settled into dust, the ashen inhabitants despaired and I jumped from the bed. III By chance I discovered an old flint in a lot The waiter brought over an espresso IV We must rise with everyone who wants to returnto this island of the world, and if the expatriates doubt renewal, their dreams will ricochet in the night, moving back and fleeing and moving back again – a nightmare of trekking in storms of five feet mounds of snow, hearing the EL sounds vibrating, clanging, shrieking in the land they drifted from – suburb to suburb and state to state – a wanderer who lost the feel of Brooklyn soil and failed to bring a chip of bluestone in remembrance. in his strange new world where everyone thinks you're foreign because you're ethnic, because you're from Brooklyn , dat funny place where life began for millions of Americans, that tip of the continent absorbing the tears of the world and washing them away into the waves beating its coast. V This borough has risen again,after being buried for decades, bursting thru the earth and scattering the ashes, as sure as the seventeen year cicada sheds its shell. my eyes moved from the window to my empty plate. and I thought of my home at the mouth of the deep harbor. that Brooklyn was never connected to the mainland must be amusing to others in the marrow of the USA , but we are no less American than those citizens who struggle to navigate their once-rooted history. this winged force will reach the heartland and help them rise above their pure, undiluted whiteness. This spirit may coax them to spend a day in Brooklyn for the sheer excitement of it, as if they too could fly over neighborhoods, spying an exotic and modern world – Brooklyn and America in the same breath.
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