Malidittu la lingua/Damned Language by Vincenzo Ancona (Legas, 2010). Book Presentation

Malidittu la lingua/Damned Language by Vincenzo Ancona (Legas, 2010)

Edited by Anna L. Chairetakis and Joseph Sciorra, translated by Gaetano Cipolla

During much of his lifetime, Vincenzo Ancona (1914-2000) was the poetic voice of New York's Sicilian immigrant community. Born in the town of Castellammare del Golfo in western Sicily, Ancona worked as a farmer and a fisherman. Immigrating to the United States in 1956, Ancona labored in factories for 24 years. Ancona was heir to the fecund Sicilian tradition of poetic composition and recitation in ottava rima, in which he composed comic anecdotes, imaginative tales, and poetic debates on the heartaches and absurdities of the immigrant experience. His works were important in reconciling feelings about past and present among their Sicilian-American audiences. This reprint of the 1990 bilingual edition of his selected works includes a CD of Ancona reciting his poetry, because oral recitation is at the heart of Sicilian verse.

 "Whatever his predicament, Ancona peppers life's unpleasant experiences with his wit and humor.  Thus, in his poems he always manages to make a place for himself in the human family."
-Fred Gardaphé, Queens College

PROGRAM:

    * Nancy Carnevale, Montclair State University
    * Lecture presentation by Joseph Sciorra, Calandra Institute, "Locating Memory: Longing, Place, and Autobiography in Vincenzo Ancona's Sicilian Poetry"
    * Anna Lomax Wood, Association for Cultural Equity
    * Gaetano Cipolla, St. John's University
    * Antonio Provenzano, poet