Guest

Lewis Turco

Winner

of the

1997 Bordighera Poetry Prize

with Joseph Alessia as Translator

Introduction by Daniela Gioseffi

We are pleased to announce the 1997 winner of the First Annual Bordighera Bi-lingual Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Charitable Foundation. Felix Stefanile, who served as Distinguished Judge, chose the winning manuscript, A Book of Fears, from several finalists, which were anonymously submitted to him. The winner is Lewis Turco of Dresden, Maine and the translator is Joseph Alessia, born in Altamonte, Italy, now of Oswego, New York.

Lewis Turco is a writer who has devoted most of his life to the craft of writing and scholarship of poetry. His book of verse forms is known to almost all American poets; it has been on the shelves of most serious poets for many years. Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1934, Lewis Putnam Turco received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Connecticut in 1959, and went on to earn the degree of Master of Arts from the University of Iowa in 1962. He served as Instructor of English and founding Director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center from 1960 to 1964, and later, as an Assistant Professor at Hillsdale College from 1964 to 1965. From 1965 until 1996, he was a professor and founding director of the Program in Writing Arts at the State University of New York at Oswego. He is currently Professor Emeritus at SUNY, Oswego.

Turco now lives with his wife in Dresden, Maine, and he can harken back over his many accomplished books including the forthcoming Shaking the Family Tree, a book of prose memoirs; The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, 1968; The New Book of Forms, 1986; Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, 1986, which won the Melville Cane Award of the Academy of American Poets; The Fog: A Chamber Opera in One Act, with the Dutch composer Walter Hekster, 1987; The Shifting Web: New and Selected Poems, 1989; Dialogue: A Socratic Dialogue on the Art of Writing Dialogue in Fiction, 1989, translated by Sylvia Biasi and published in Italy as Il Dialogo in 1992; The Public Poet, Five Lectures on the Art and Craft of Poetry, 1991; and Emily Dickinson, Woman of Letters, 1993. Lewis Turco’s most recent publication is Bordello: A Portfolio of Poemprints, with George O’Connell, 1996.

While the winner of the award was still anonymous to him, judge Felix Stefanile wrote:

It is my decision that the first Bordighera Poetry Prize should be awarded to the author of A Book of Fears. I have tried, in my reckoning, to be mindful of the “firstness” of this particular award as the beginning of a series of Bordighera prizes. In this respect, it appears to me, A Book of Fears offers a kind of assurance, both stylistic and organizational. . . . The airy confidence combined with a seemingly unpretentious execution of effects gives to this group of poems a certain pace of discourse, of esthetic idiom—the unassuming syntactical fugues that crop up in each vignette, for instance—that makes the individual “lyrics” kindred spirits, despite a clash of themes. In other words, I see here the poems of a whole person unified in his or her way of seeing and of saying. This is a sign to me, of . . . literary maturity. I have no doubt that this person may be criticized by some for a wacky view of life, and an odd sense of humor, but I do not believe any reviewer in honesty will ever accuse the author of not writing well, or without graceful turns of speech and rhythm.

We are given a world in A Book of Fears, a tricky domain of obsessive, solipsistic terror in which the satirical psychologizing becomes understated but specific social criticism. In most cases in the poems we’re offered a portrait of persons, or the shades of one person, whom we are determined not to pity, though we feel sorry for such a person. This paradox is the nub of the manuscript, and it—is a neat trick. The manuscript shows a kind of intellectual energy.

Felix Stefanile, who is himself bi-lingual and the most venerable and much loved poet of our community, is known most recently for his fine work, The Dance at St. Gabriel’s. Stefanile has translated extensively from the Italian as well and has served as a professor at Purdue University. He is editor of Sparrow, an annual compendium of sonnets, which he has published for many years.

The translator of A Book of Fears by Lewis Turco is Joseph Alessia, born in Altamonte, Italy in 1938. He holds a Master of Arts from DePaul University, 1970; and a PhD from Indiana University, 1970. He has been a professor at Collegio San Leone Magno (Italy), 1958–63 and a faculty member of the University of Colorado, 1970; Indiana University, 1968–70; Ohio State University, 1970–74. He met Lewis Turco while serving as a professor at SUNY Oswego where they were colleagues on the faculty since 1974. Joseph Alessia is author of Approfondiamo l’Italiano (1977) and The Poetry of Dino Frescobaldi (1983). He resides in Oswego, New York.

Lewis Turco and his translator, Joseph Alessia, will divide the two-thousand-dollar cash award evenly between them. A Book of Fears will be published in 1998 by Bordighera, Inc., as first in an ongoing series sponsored by the Sonia Raiziss-Giop Foundation for Poetry, particularly Italian poetry. The prize was established to foster a preservation of the Italian language among Italian-American poets, and, to reward the best manuscript in English by an Italian-American poet each year, as well as insure its publication. The deadline for 1998 competition will be at the end of May, 1998. For entry Guidelines write to: The Bordighera Bi-lingual Poetry Prize; Daniela Gioseffi and Alfredo dePalchi, Contest Coordinators; PO Box 15; Andover NJ 07821–0015.

Following are a few sample selections from A Book of Fears.

QUIESCOPHOBIA: The Fear of Silence [1]

—On a line by John Gilgun

He awakens in the darkness hearing

nothing — does this silence

hold a secret at its center? There is

not a timber creaking nor the ticking

of a timepiece, only stillness

at the center of awareness,

only emptiness and shadow. He

turns on the light and listens — still

there’s little in the quiet but his

breathing, so he holds his breath to listen

to the dancing of his nerve-ends, to the straining

of his throat, the tongue as dry as fever.

Can this silence hold the secret

at the center of the dance?

And the dance . . . the dance, what is it?

What’s that noise? He startles — only stillness

rushing through his veins, the surge of blood

within his eardrums, in his arteries

the whirling of his hours, of his being

in the silence at the center of the dance.

CHOROPHOBIA: The Fear of Dancing

He watches the dancers skimming across the floor

holding one another, letting go,

falling away and coming together,

approaching and passing. “Come on, let’s dance,”

she says. He shakes his head,

and as he does so the ballroom wobbles,

the dancers shift and shimmer

holding one another, letting go,

falling away and down because the floor

is a firmament of whirling dots of light —

he watches the dancers skimming across a floor

insubstantial as a summer sky.

The music murmurs among the whirling lights

like zephyrs beneath the stars, falling away,

approaching and passing. He shuts his eyes

because the floor is a firmament of shadow

deckled with dots of light spinning away.

The dancers shift and shimmer, begin to fall

through the spaces between the dots of light,

begin to fall holding one another.

MONOPHOBIA: The Fear of Loneliness

She sits by herself at a table, not the bar,

slowly stirring her warming cocktail, listening

to the buzz of conversation — the softball chat,

who dumped whom and when and why and where.

A cirrus of smoke is suspended in the air.

She smiles at him. He passes by. Another

takes his place. She smiles again and sips

her warming cocktail. “May I sit down?” he asks.

She nods, he sits. “Buy you a drink?” “Okay.”

While he is gone she drinks her warming cocktail.

When he returns he says, “So, what’s your name?

Mine’s. . . . She doesn’t catch it. What’s the difference,

anyway? But she tells him hers. They add

to the buzz of conversation — who knows whom

and where and when and why. But no one knows

any other, she thinks and does not think.

She stirs her warming cocktail now and then,

and when it’s time to go she takes her bag

and follows him through the buzz of conversation,

the cirrus of smoke suspended in the air.

PARTURIPHOBIA: The Fear of Childbirth

He’s not for her, no matter who he is.

It’s all his fault — the blood, the pain, the mess.

She’s not responsible for the stocking of the planet —

let someone else do that. Too many people

anyway as it is. She looks at him

and shudders — the tremor begins about waist high

and travels down her hips, along her thighs,

ends at her knees. She feels her stomach turn

and looks away. He’s not for her, no matter

what. She doesn’t need the mess, the pain,

the blood, the squalling brat for the rest of her life.

She recalls her younger brother and what he did —

he’s responsible for what happened to

their mother, he and her father — she’s well out

of that; she’ll never see either of them

the rest of her life. Let someone else do that,

go see the murderers in their jackals’ lair.

She smoothes her hair, looks up and sees another

coming in the door. She almost stares,

but he is not for her, never for her.

PEDIOPHOBIA: The Fear of Children

He sees them on the sidewalk before his doorway

and begins to sweat. What can he do? How

can he negotiate those laughing voices,

those whirling arms, the quizzing eyes, how

get into his apartment and be safe

behind the dusty windows closed against

the nasty games, the screams, the dirty faces?

He crosses the street and keeps on walking.

He goes slowly as he can around the block,

keeping watch against another clot

of children or a lone minute assassin.

When he approaches home again carrying his bag

of groceries he sees them still before his door.

He bites his lip. He walks quickly

among the laughing voices, whirling arms, dirty

faces, the screams, the staring eyes. He walks

stumbling up the stairs and through the door,

drops his burden on the couch, reaches

trembling for the shade, pulls it down

over the dusty panes, the life, the laughter.

APEIROPHOBIA: The Fear of Infinity

He lies awake in his bed

in the pit of night, gazing into the infinite

reaches of his mind. Stars whistle there

in the vacuum; shadow fades

into shadow, and he is falling —

he is disappearing into himself.

He peers into the well without bottom,

feels compelled to drink the black water,

slake his thirst in the liquid

that stands among the stars holding his eyes.

He lies awake in the dark of night

lost in the reaches of his mind,

disappearing into himself, into the well

of shadow, falling, hearing the stars whistle

in the vacuum filled with the water that holds his eyes.

Water rises in his throat. He sees himself

drowning in the well, in the infinite

reaches of his mind. He hears himself whistle

among the stars, shadow fading

into shadow, fading and falling.