Nin Andrews and I have been bitch-blogging for a few days now and we thought that we'd take today off from bitching, or at least tone it down a little. We want to take a moment and reflect upon a very important bitch moment in New York State, in my life, and also give some praise to one of our favorite poets, Maria Mazziotti Gillan.
Thanks to Maria, thanks to Deanna, thanks to New York’s Marriage Equality Act approved on June 24, 2011, I got married last summer and wrote a blog entry for Best American Poetry. Here is the link to that post: Married Bitches
I want to take some time on this blog to give a bitchin' thanks to the one and only great Maria Mazziotti Gillan for being a great mentor, poet, friend, and so much more. I will paste a short version of her bio here, which can hardly contain the great spirit she is.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan is an American poet who grew up speaking Italian in an Italian immigrant family in Paterson, New Jersey. She is the Founder and the Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ. She is also the Director of the Creative Writing Program / The Binghamton Center for Writers, and a Professor of Poetry at Binghamton University-State University of New York. She has published eleven books of poetry, including The Weather of Old Seasons (Cross-Cultural Communications, 1988), Where I Come From (1995), Things My Mother Told Me (1999), and Italian Women in Black Dresses (Guernica Editions, 2002). She is co-editor with her daughter Jennifer of three anthologies published by Penguin/Putnam: Unsettling America, Identity Lessons, and Growing up Ethnic in America. She also has co-edited with her daughter Jennifer Gillan and Edvige Giunta, Italian American Writers on New Jersey (Rutgers University Press). She is the editor of the award-winning Paterson Literary Review. Her newest book, All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions, 2007) won the 2008 American Book Award. Gillan also received the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, the New Jersey Governor’s Award for Literary Outreach, and The Dare to Imagine Award from Very Special Arts. Her poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac.
HERE ARE TWO LINKS THAT WILL LEAD YOU TO MARIA’S POEMS:
"Arturo," "Public School #18: Paterson, New Jersey," and "My Daughter at 14, Christmas Dance, 1981" Link to Poems
AND
“Love Poem to My Husband of 31 Years,” “Dream of My Grandmother & Great Grandmother,” and “What A Liar I Am” Link to Poems
I must say that Joe Weil compliments and describes Maria's poetry beautifully in his tribute to her posted on The Best America Poetry blog back in February. He is an incredible poet himself and I just love what he wrote: "If one is not careful, and is expecting a nuanced equivocation of "feeling" then one misreads her. She is a voice that has learned to inhabit, and this is how to enjoy her work. It is a voice that has no time to draw attention to decorative effects. It is a voice of presence rather than performance, the voice of an opera singer who has sung long enough to know that six octave ranges will not do you much good if you need just one note and can't be direct enough to nail it." Here is the link to rest of the tribute by Weil: Tribute to a Poet...
I can’t help but celebrate Maria. For cripes sake, I got married because she said, in her perfect scratchy voice, honey go get married. Now, about five months later, I must say that my wife and I are like old Italian bitches who sit around and drink espresso, read the paper, wear dusters around the house, and sweep the front porch. This is all true. In fact, I am compelled to share a letter that I wrote to Maria that describes and reflects upon one bitchin-married-life morning in particular. Now, keep in mind that I had already drank a lot of coffee when I wrote this letter, I was a newlywed, and I thought married couples were supposed to sit at the kitchen table together and read the newspaper. So, here is the letter that I wrote to Maria. I think it covers the celebration of her and the beauty of what it’s like for two bitches to get married.
Dear Maria,
I was reading the paper and noticed that Husston and Wiebe share the title of this years’ golf tournament in Binghamton, NY. I couldn’t help but think about how this is just as important as the headline about gay marriage in this town. I thought it was funny how Husston and Wiebe rhymes with fuckin’ dweeb then I realized that this was the golf tournament sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods and how it was just yesterday that my wife delivered a basket of cookies for one of their raffle prizes and that some fuckin’ dweeb would win it. The thought of some guy eating my wife’s cookies makes me a little jealous and I can’t help but want to tell you this. Anyway, I kept reading the paper and realized the front page was folded in half and I almost missed the article about how the Sewage Board OKs Safety Inspection. Now, not only is this town going to shit and fuckin’ dweebs are winning golf tournaments but my morning is dragging on and I’m drinking too much coffee, which reminds me of just the other day when Deanna and I were standing in line at the City Clerk’s office. I had to pee badly and the bathrooms were locked. Instead of running out of the City Clerk’s office I stayed and thought about you Maria. I thought about how you were the one who told us in your perfect scratchy voice to go get married. You are the one who I always run into in the bathrooms on campus. I know, I know, but I must say it, we both pee all the time. It must be from all that limoncello and those double shots of espresso. Oh, Maria you are the one who I want to run up to and say, I hope you are proud I married a good Italian girl.
Love,
Nicole
Comments