NOSTALGIA FOR THE PAST:

GIUSEPPE INCALICCHIO

This name jumped to my eyes twice in the last few days. It appeared below of a bunch of poetry lines in a local newspaper that is allegedly written in Italian. Just around that time, the same newspaper reported the arrival in New York of Giuseppe Ungaretti[1] with an interview and a photo. To be noticed: that newspaper had never previously published even a single poem by Ungaretti or any kind of articles about him. As far as I can tell, its readers know about Ungaretti just as much as I knew about Incalicchio[2] until that moment. Such was the situation when I opened my column for the November 15, 1959, issue of the weekly Il Borghese[3] with an ironic observation that stated: “I was shown an Italian-language newspaper with the photo of Ungaretti visiting New York. I wonder who told the newspaper that quenches[4] its readers’ thirst for poetry with Giuseppe Incalicchio’s verses that Ungaretti is a poet.”

On January 5, 1960, poet Incalicchio wrote to the Borghese and the editor forwarded his letter to me asking if I wanted to reply. I answered that they should publish it without changing a single comma because that would be the best possible reply to himself. And so it goes that it appeared in the section Small Mail in the January 28, 1960 issue.

Dear Editor,

I am an occasional reader of Your magazine. In the number 48 issue, in the column New York Diary, Giuseppe Prezzolini mentioned my name. I shall premise that I don’t know the above-mentioned individual, who, from what I can surmise, must be your correspondent in New York. In his column my name is mentioned in a comparison with the poets Giuseppe Ungaretti and Salvatore Quasimodo.[5] It doesn’t take a genius to notice the sarcasm contained in the note about me. Most likely your Italian readers wondered: “Who is this guy, anyway?”

The answer is easy. I am one of the millions of immigrants who fifty years ago left Italy because in Italy there were no opportunities for us. And if in these fifty years I have been naïve and idealistic enough to cultivate, as best I could, Italian poetry, could you in all honesty say that this was a crime? (In reality, there is nothing worse and also more stupid than cultivating Italian poetry in this country.) Certainly, I never had the hubris to expect that my name would be glorified in the literary anthologies of my motherland. Frankly, believe me, I can do without such honor (?) Consequently, it is very hard for me to comprehend the obscure reasons that motivated your correspondent to mention my name. In any case, let’s just forget about it.

In conclusion, dear Editor, please heed my curiosity. Isn’t it true that the so-called hermetic poets represent a literary current that, when it’s not conscious mystification of art, is nothing more than a manifestation of mental unbalance?

Sincerely,

Giuseppe Incalicchio

Staten Island, January 5, 1960

P.S. With reference to the Nobel Prize awarded to Salvatore Quasimodo, I have a question: did the Swedish government award the prize to an Italian poet because of the sinking of the ship Andrea Doria? [6] If that were the case, it wouldn’t be the first time Italians are made fools of.

However, on January 27, 1960, ignoring that his first letter would appear in a later issue of the magazine, Incalicchio wrote again. I am publishing his second letter here for the first time.

Illustrious Editor:

As you know, Italians in America, in addition to reading almost all the publications that arrive from Italy, also read the magazine you so wisely edit, Il Borghese, which is probably more eloquent than others for its strictly literary content that eschews images and flashiness, two things that in these days are overused. I am one of those who read with interest Il Borghese, which, since I am not a subscriber, I purchase every week at one of New York’s newsstands. Having said so, I want to share with you my surprise when I read in the issue number 48 a column by Professor Giuseppe Prezzolini that mentions my name directly, and more specifically: “I was shown an Italian language newspaper with the photograph of Ungaretti visiting New York. I wonder who told the newspaper that waters its readers with Giuseppe Incalicchio’s verses that Ungaretti is a poet.” With these words Eminent Professor Prezzolini obviously wanted to offend me because the term “to water” is used for animals when they are taken to the watering tank; and this definition does not bring honor to the pedagogue Prezzolini. The newspaper he alluded to is read not only by educated Italians but also by scholars of other nationalities who love our language; and is read by Prezzolini himself, who, otherwise, couldn’t have found out about my poems; which, maybe, are not appreciated by him if he thinks he should compare them with those of his great friend Giuseppe Ungaretti with whom he had lunch, as he wrote in the first part of the same article. As to the newspaper in question, I am not the only one whose poems have been published there. The works of many other Italian Americans have also been published, and Prezzolini knows this very well. Why did he choose only me as his target to water his readers? Isn’t this an obvious insult? Let him continue to write his overblown columns but tell him to leave me alone. My poems have nothing to be ashamed of when compared to those of Ungaretti and they would have nothing to be ashamed of compared to those of Prezzolini if he were a poet.

I would be grateful, dear Editor, if you should make public my complaint that objects to the arbitrary and less-than-noble utterances of the illustrious Professor Giuseppe Prezzolini.[7]

In the period between the first and the second letter, Incalicchio’s mood and attitude changed. In the first letter, to him I was an “unknown,” presumably “a correspondent for Il Borghese.” In the second I became “Professor,” indeed, “Eminent Professor.” In his first letter, Incalicchio is an occasional reader of the magazine; in the second we learn that he buys it regularly at newsstands, although he is not a subscriber. To demonstrate his knowledge of the magazine, Incalicchio qualifies it as outstanding in term of its “strictly literary content”(!) In his second letter, Incalicchio asks how come I chose him as a target, and “only him” instead of the many Italian Americans whose poems are published in that newspaper.

I am more than happy to answer his questions. The meaning of my first note in the column was: there is a huge gap between Ungaretti’s poetry and the poems that appear regularly in said newspaper. Given those standards, it is evident that Ungaretti’s poems for the editors are worth zero; exactly as Incalicchio himself stated when he wrote that in his opinion hermetic poetry is the stuff of nuts or crooks. There is nothing offensive against Incalicchio in my words. Incalicchio’s poems and the poems of many other people like him that appear in those sheets are regular poems, written in the poetic language we have been accustomed to for centuries. There are no dangerous innovations, there are no images that make one jump up and they require no effort to understand what they mean. Their meaning can only elicit approval on the part of the good and proper people who read them. The verses follow an order, metric rules are applied, all the words can be found in an Italian dictionary and they are always used with their conventional meaning. Incalicchio’s verses, as well as those of his friends, march on like soldiers in a platoon at the orders of a corporal. In short, Ungaretti’s poetry is the opposite of Incalicchio’s. My note was not directed at Incalicchio. Rather, I was pointing out a contradiction in the newspaper that publishes his poems but had never mentioned Ungaretti even once before, and only became aware of him the day when he showed up in New York. Now Incalicchio asks me why I chose his name instead of that of another poet’s whose verses appear in the same publication. Here is the reason why: in those days his name appeared twice in the newspaper. And I also liked the musicality of that name. I didn’t know who he was and not even now do I have any idea who he may be. I chose him because of the frequency of his apparitions.

Not yet satisfied with the two letters I am publishing here, Incalicchio wrote yet another letter to a different magazine that had mentioned my column. And, to top it off, he wrote a poem about me, a poem that I really want to share with my readers. Here it is:

COMPARISON
(dedicated to an illustrious pedagogue)

You are a brilliant and wise mentor

And I believe you were a student of Carducci;

 You are a good writer and this brings you honor

 And you enjoy the autumn sky.

 You are famous for a book

 About that Florentine secretary.[8]

 We all know about your renowned acumen

And your vigorous Latin spirit.

Yet sometimes from so high up

 You come down here and cast into a bad light

 Those you don’t believe are at your height

 Of knowledge and you reduce them to nothing.

 And if you are proud to be Tuscan

 And as such you feel superior

You should know I am from Latium,[9] I am a Roman

 And I have of Horace[10] the strength and good humor.

 There was a time when your words didn’t fail

 To advise the love of poetry

The time when you were schoolmaster

 And spoke about art and philosophy.

Now, I don’t know why it came to you

To put my name in the note

You sent to the Italian people

Who, with reason, notice the beautiful and the ugly.

That newspaper does not water people

With my flowing and exciting rhymes;

If anything, it delights them. That is the error

That you made: the first mistake

Of a Titan that is slowly dropping

From open hills toward the highplains[11]

And it seems indeed that in you is disappearing

Into vain dreams the genius of your early years.

[CONFRONTI -- Tu sei brillante e savio precettore/ e credo del Carducci fosti alunno:/ tu scrivi bene, e ciò ti rende onore./ E ti diletta il cielo de l’autunno./ Già sei famoso per quel tuo volume/ intorno al segretario fiorentino:/ tutti sappiam del tuo provato acume,/ del tuo vigore e spirito latino./ Ma qualche volta pur da tanta altezza/ scendi un po’ giù mettendo in scarsa luce/ chi tu non credi essere a l’altezza/ del tuo saper e a nulla si riduce./ Pur se tu vanti d’essere toscano,/ e come tal ti senti superiore,/ sappi ch’io son del Lazio, son romano/ ed ho d’Orazio forza e buon umore./ Un tempo non mancò la tua parola/ a consigliar d’amar la poesia/ e questo quando a capo della scuola/ d’arte parlasti e di filosofia./ Or, io non so perché ti venne in mente/ d’apporre il mio nome in quella nota/ mandata a quella nostra itala gente/ che con ragione il brutto e il bello annota/ quel foglio non abbevera il lettore/ delle fluenti e fervide mie rime;/ si diletta, se mai. Questo è l’errore/ da te commesso, e son le pecche prime/ d’un titano che lento va scendendo/ dai colli aprichi giù pei falsi piani;/ e sembra inver che in te va scomparendo/ l’ingegno giovanil fra sogni vani.]

I probably overdid it with the narration of this colonial episode but I thought my readers would find it useful to understand certain phenomena of Italian immigration directly from written documents. I don’t believe it is possible to fake letters and poems like those of Incalicchio. For this reason alone their value is incalculable.

I want to add that Mr. Incalicchio is wrong when he demands to be “left alone.” Writing verses, good or bad, is private business when one keeps them in a drawer. Once they are published everybody has the right to critique them. By the way, I didn’t even characterize them negatively. I only observed that a newspaper that publishes his verses most likely will ignore Ungaretti’s. I didn’t say that Mr. Incalicchio is a bigamous or a forger. I didn’t even say that he writes poems identical to those that fifty years ago used to appear on La Farfalla illustrata. I just limited myself to comparing him with another poet. To conclude: I gave him the gratification of publishing his polemical prose and his satirical verses for a public that would have never read him. I did not change even a single comma. The readers will pass their own personal judgments.

New York, April 21, 1960