REVIEWS

Nostalgic, funny, sad, exuberant, poignant, skillful and always honest, Wise gives us not only verbal photos, but the ebullient songs of her Italian ancestors. Her language washes over us—“the voices of [her] grandmother and her family—/their billows of un-sleek, second-hand Italian/their vowels puffing around the room.” 

 Lois Marie Harrod, author of Spat and The Bed               the Size of a Small Country

The poems are written with honesty, humor, precision, sometimes a move towards the surreal: Maria “flew delicate dress hems through her machine/with the precision of a bombardier”; after a funeral, “the women gather plastic forks into cups/like bouquets from another planet.” Wise’s poems are big-hearted and clear-eyed, telling stories in women’s voices, family voices.

         Maxine Susman, author of My Mother’s Medicine                       and Northern Swim

In this moving tribute to the family, Marie Wise explores the humor, love and heartache of three generations of Italian-American women.   More than language and words, Ms. Wise is speaking of love—that deep, complex familial love which also has no beginning or ending as proven through the pages of this collection.  

Susan Gerardi Bello, author of Through the Oak Tree