Ways of Writing Home

Jim Zucchero

THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HOME, IDENTITY and writing are complex and rich in meaning. Exploring the nature of these relationships has been especially important to exiles and immigrant writers, both historically and in contemporary times. Italian-Canadian writers and scholars have made important contributions to this body of writing; in fact, the thread of writing that explores relations between home and identity can be traced from the early journals of the Jesuit missionary F.G. Bressani in the seventeenth century to the poetry and stories of the latest generation of Italians to migrate to Canada and make it their home. This essay explores how several contemporary Italian-Canadian writers have worked through the relationships between home, identity and belonging, and examines some of the effects of their writing. How do these writers contribute to current discussions about home and identity? Furthermore, what does their creative work suggest about the capacity for writing to function as a tool for understanding and illuminating the complex ties between home and identity? Put another way, how have ItalianCanadian writers tried to “write their way home”?

In this instance, ‘writing home’ suggests the idea of articulating a dialogue between two cultures – those of Canada and Italy. This dialogue will be conceived and expressed differently by every writer because it is the product of one’s unique experience, and because it is affected by so many variables: the nature of the relationship with Italy – as country of birth, or ancestral homeland; the time of migration; the age and gender of the writer, regional considerations, and so on. Writing home, then, becomes one means of trying to bridge the gap between the Italian culture of their heritage, and the Canadian culture in which they are now immersed. This essay examines very different ways of writing home: a novel, two short poems, and public discourse from the political arena. These diverse samples demonstrate that Italian-Canadian writers are constantly negotiating the relationship between their Italian cultural heritage and their Canadian cultural experience, and finding creative ways to express the dynamics of this relationship in their writing.

One question that arises is: What links these ways of writing home? Is there a common thread? If so, what does it suggest about the cultures of Italy and of Canada respectively? In each of these cases writing is a vehicle for articulating competing impulses toward nostalgia and novelty; for reconciling tensions between tradition and modernity, past and future. Writing home becomes a way to reflect upon and work through the classic immigrant dilemma of belonging to two cultures, but existing in neither one comfortably. The writing examined here resonates with much of the body of Italian-Canadian writing, and also provides insights into how it is developing in the twenty-first century.

This essay is case study in three parts: First, I discuss Mary di Michele’s 2004 novel Tenor of Love. Next, I examine poems by two emerging Canadian poets – Capilongo and Giorno – who use humour as a key feature of their writing home. Thirdly, I consider writing by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, a former poet laureate of Toronto who ‘writes home’ through his involvement in politics and civic service. Considered together, these three examples represent a diverse writing sample. But each in its own way supports my assertion that contemporary Italian-Canadian writers are producing compelling writing that makes a unique contribution to Canadian literary culture, and offers a distinctive voice in the dialogue about Canadian identity.

Part I: Tenor of Love

In her novel Tenor of Love (2004), Mary di Michele gives us, first and foremost, a wonderful love story. Ideas about love are at the centre of her writing home, from Canada to Italy. Tenor of Love is a fictional recreation of the life of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, from the perspective of the women who loved him; namely, the sisters Ada and Rina Giachetti, and the American socialite Dorothy Benjamin Park. At another level the novel can be read as a paradigm of Italian emigration. In Caruso, the talented young Italian who comes to America to make his name, spread his art and seek his fortune, we can see the archetype of millions of Italians who would follow him and emigrate to America¹ in the twentieth century.

Consider the diverse ways in which aspects of home are represented in Tenor of Love. The narrative moves back and forth between Italy and America, and traces the dramatic twists and turns of Caruso’s personal affairs as they unfold alongside his meteoric rise to fame and fortune. The protagonist emerges as a pack of contradictions, torn by competing impulses – his enormous ego and his self doubt; his appetite for fame and fortune and his desire for solitude and simple pleasures. Caruso was Italian to the core – in his tastes, character and disposition; and yet, he felt drawn to America. America was the land where his dreams of greatness could take flight, but Italy would forever claim his heart.

Notably, Caruso’s first migration is from the South of Italy to the North – from his home in Naples to the Giachetti household in Tuscany. The young Rico is introduced as a travelling man with no pretense. When he arrives in Tuscany he is carrying his belongings in a cardboard suitcase. (10) And yet, he is a man with great dignity, entirely self-possessed, with a keen sense of his own power and presence. Above all, he displays burning ambition and supreme self-confidence. (23)

Soon after his arrival and his integration into the household, the love triangle begins to take shape. Rico is torn between the love of two sisters, Ada (the prima donna) and Rina (the innocent) – much like the immigrant whose loyalties are divided between love for the homeland and the adopted country. Perhaps not surprisingly, the naive young Caruso is taken advantage of by the impresario Goldini. His innocence and ambition make him easy prey. The parallels are hard to miss – many talented, industrious Italian immigrants in America were exploited by unscrupulous bosses, and even by some padroni.

When he arrives in America, Rico becomes a star almost overnight. He opens the season at the Met in New York City; soon he is being paid $5000 a night – a princely sum in 1903! (146) Like many enterprising Italian immigrants in America, Rico takes a chance and it pays off handsomely. He embraces the new recording technology and soon his voice is playing on phonographs everywhere, spreading his fame and growing his fortune. Caruso is the archetypal young entrepreneur taking big risks and collecting the benefits. But the obvious question arises: will success corrupt the young Italian star? He begins to live in great splendour during the summers at his Italian villa, Bellosguardo. But is he still in touch with reality and his humble roots? As if to teach him a lesson, the wheel of fortune turns: Rina and Rico have a dalliance at Bellosguardo, Ada bursts in, and in a fit of rage all is spoiled. (164) Now, vengeance and vindictiveness wreak havoc on their world.

Rico identifies with Italians abroad who have to roam the world to make a living, especially those in New York; but he returns to Italy each summer, to touch his native soil and to be with his two sons there. His loyalty to his cultural roots is clearly evident. Still, he can’t settle on having it only one way. His loyalties and his passions are divided. While the dutiful Rina tends to his children and estate in Italy, Rico falls in love, again, this time with a shy, young American socialite named Dorothy, in New York.

Just what is it about the young American that he finds so alluring? Not so much her beauty as her innocence. She does not know him as the famous singer – Caruso. Rico is smitten by her deference; by the idea that he can mould her to his will and create with her the life he aspires to have in America. They are married, against her father’s wishes, and enjoy three short years of bliss together before Caruso falls ill.

Tenor of Love wears its title comfortably; love is central to the novel’s plot and theme, its character development and dialogue. It is all about love – lost and found, stolen and given. As in a good Italian opera, there are many racy bits: tales of betrayal, jealous sisters, a fop of a cuckold husband, bastard children – wonderful episodes that can only be mentioned in passing here. The climax of the novel comes in a passage that examines the nature of love and delivers a powerful message that bears directly on the idea of writing home.

Di Michele examines the love that binds Rico and Dorothy together; her narrator asks: “What is love and how does one choose it?” (269) Dorothy answers:

What I believe is that love is a discovery, a synchronous discovery, made between two people. To be at home with someone – I think now that it’s just that simple, and also that surprising, because that someone may be a stranger. .... with Enrico Caruso ... I found myself truly at home for the first time and with a man from the other side of the Atlantic. (269)

At the heart of the novel is the romantic idea that in love we develop to our true potential and become all we can be; that it takes a leap of faith to give oneself totally to “a stranger”; and that in bridging this great divide we grow and are made better. The story of their great love affair hints at the idea that reciprocity between the creative power of the old world (with its history and traditions) and the energy and enterprise of the new world (with its resources and opportunity) can produce a beautiful marriage – one that allows each partner to prosper and achieve his or her full humanity.

When Caruso finally succumbs to his illness and dies in his hometown of Naples, the entire city mourns his passing. It is said that he always kept his Italian citizenship, but he preferred to sing in America. In a sense, his heart was in Italy, but his bank account was in America. He needed to feed both appetites: his craving for artistic accolades, for wealth and fame, could only be sated in America. But he could not extinguish his need to be nurtured by the culture of his old home, Italy. His dilemma neatly symbolizes the divided sensibility and double loyalties of the immigrant. Despite his great success, he could never overcome his sense of being an outsider, a visitor in America.

In Tenor of Love, di Michele “writes home” by re-visiting and re-imagining the classic immigrant narrative in the form of a twentieth century fairytale: Caruso, the great Italian artist, makes good in America. Certain features of di Michele’s novel seem typically Canadian: she strikes a perfect balance between narrative and description. She incorporates careful research of historic facts and events, but also gives us rich passages that spring from her imagination, scenes that convey deeply felt emotions of bliss and despair, anger and joy. She has written a novel of great beauty, one that engages readers as both an intimate portrait of a compelling figure, and a paradigm of Italian migration. Di Michele’s love story of Caruso celebrates the possibility of bridging the great divide, but it also conveys the pain, loss and sacrifices involved in taking that big chance. It provides rich material for those interested in exploring the correspondence between the old world and the new world, between home and away. Tenor of Love is a sophisticated work of art from an accomplished writer – an example of the excellence of much Italian-Canadian writing released in recent years.

Part II: Italian-Canadian Writers Find Their Funny Bone

Many of the issues of cultural disconnectedness that di Michele alludes to in Tenor of Love are explored with great humour by an emerging group of writers including: poets Domenico Capilongo, Frank Giorno, Gianna Patriarca, and Giovanna Riccio, and short story writers like Marisa De Franceschi, Delia De Santis, and Bruna Di Giuseppe, to name just a few. Their humourous writing may seem simple, but it is deceptively complex. At one level, they relate comic anecdotes and humourous episodes that are entertaining in themselves. But beneath the surface their humour is provocative and instructive because it illustrates important points about social adjustment, integration, belonging and social agency. Their writing extends a long tradition of using humour as a strategy for defending against prejudice, and a tool for coping with social resistance and control. The second part of this essay examines two examples of this humourous writing and considers why humour is an effective tool for exploring relationships between Italian and Canadian cultures.

The noted Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan once said: “Behind every joke there is a deep cultural grievance. You cannot have a joke without a grievance.” The grievance may be toward some other individual or group, or against oneself – a self-deprecating humour. In either case social dynamics are at play and very often some measure of social resistance is being expressed. Beverly Rasporich suggests that “minority humour makes an important contribution to the dialogue about Canadian identity.”(53) Like McLuhan, Rasporich emphasizes the cultural elements of humour as central. She asserts: “Because humour is so deeply rooted in cultural values, attitudes and realities, it can be a highly effective means of myth-making, of telling who we are or ought to be....” (53) Capilongo and Giorno are among a new group of Italian-Canadian poets who are writing clever, funny poems that explore these questions of “who we are, or ought to be.”

Their poems both share in and depart from the literary tradition from which they spring: narratives about the journey, nostalgic laments for the home left behind, and the difficulties of making enormous cultural adjustments. The titles of their publications are the first clear sign that their writing approaches traditional immigrant themes from a different perspective. Finally, sometime early in the twenty-first century, Italian-Canadian writers discovered their funny bone. In 2008 Capilongo published a collection of poems entitled I thought elvis was italian; that same year, Giorno released his collection of poems called Arrivederci, Plastic-Covered Couch. I will use the title poems from these two collections to illustrate how these two writers use humour to explore the correspondence between their Italian heritage and their experience of life in Canada, and to express their cultural grievances.

Domenico Capilongo begins his poem “I thought elvis was italian” with: “pictures of my father slick-haired & sideburned.” Then he writes: “my uncles had all his albums/ ...thought he had to change his name/ like dean martin did/ the leather/ the rings & gold chains/ the way he moved his hips/ his lips/ the leather/ the sicilian black of his hair/ ...his best friend named esposito/...his fixation with cars/ the way he looked at women/ the way he put on weight/ how close he was to his mother....” (13) In his description of Elvis, Capilongo gives us a colourful list of characteristics often associated with the stereotypical Italian male. But through his opening reference to his father, his poem turns the homage to Elvis on its head. Here, homage collides with pop cultural analysis of both Elvis and Italian male stereotypes. In one fell swoop he takes on Italian male stereotypes (often held up to ridicule) and the rise and fall of perhaps the greatest American pop culture figure of the twentieth century. But it is crucial to note that his analysis of Elvis as portraying many features associated with Italian men is in the context of homage to his own father. He thought his father was like Elvis, or that Elvis was like his father: slick-haired, sideburned ... the coolest of the cool.

Capilongo’s Elvis poem is at once a light-hearted bit of pop fun, and at the same time quite serious: a rejection of the mockery of Italian male strength. Just as he reveres his father’s coolness (as being just like Elvis’), he recognizes that it too is temporal, fleeting and fading. Rasporich points out that “irony by minority culture writers in Canada is often directed inwards, toward immigrant realities. Typically, writers from minority culture backgrounds walk in two cultural worlds ... they are inclined to consider ... what it means to be Canadian with an ironic eye.” (63) Capilongo’s Elvis poem provides an excellent example of how irony and humour are being used to examine immigrant themes (in this case, ethnic stereotypes) but with a different twist; as Giovanna Riccio puts it, “the themes will persist but hopefully with new tonalities and emotions.” (e-mail 30/4/10)

This new humorous writing suggests to me a different level of comfort with the collective identity that has developed for Italian-Canadians, or at least a willingness to see that humour can be an effective tool for examining and exploiting the usual ethnic stereotypes. Here, the potentially hurtful barbs are in effect blunted through their being appropriated in self-deprecating humour.

Frank Giorno does something similar in his poem, “Arrivederci, Plastic-Covered Couch” but instead of a pop icon, like Elvis, he chooses an item of furniture invested with symbolic significance. The plastic-covered couch was a way of announcing to the world: “We are as good as you! We have fine furnishings too, just as nice as yours ... but we are sensible enough to secure them against all harm.” In his poem, Giorno pokes fun at this idea: “ ‘The Arm Chair, the Love Seat, and the Holy Couch’/ We couldn’t sit on them – / They were for show.” (22) The plastic-covered couch is the symbol of the achievement of hard working immigrants like his parents, who “toiled in factories baking like meat in the oven” (22) while he enjoyed his first sexual encounter on the fruits of their labour. On a hot day in July, their “bodies entwined got stuck to the ‘Holy Couch’/ and its sacred plastic wrap.” (22) Their amorous encounter is so full of passion that it causes the furniture to break: “a crack that sounded like thunder ... a rupture ... [in their] rapture.” (22)

Many years later, after his mother has died, and his widowed father has taken his last nap on it, they haul the plastic-covered couch out to the curb for garbage. Now the narrator is struck by a deep sense of sadness; tears roll down his face; he says good-bye to the plasticcovered couch as if he were burying it along with his parents. Like the Elvis poem, “Arrivederci, Plastic-Covered Couch” works at several levels. On one level there is a playful mocking tone, poking fun at the trappings of respectability. But at another level there is a serious sub-text: a reverence for family life, for hard work, sacrifice, and achievement; a sense of respect for parents that may be a thing of the past. The closing stanza conveys a deep sense of melancholy, suggesting that the death of his parents marks the passing of a generation, their culture, and their idiosyncrasies. In the end, the poem pivots on this tension between celebrating and dismissing; between recognition of virtue and the rejection of it. Giorno’s clever poem inhabits the space between two generations and two continents. His narrator (like many immigrants) has a foot on each side of the great cultural divide and gazes into the abyss, uncertain which way to move. His poem underscores Rasporich’s point that “irony is a defence ... a means of underlining the racial and cultural barriers of Canadian society.” (63) Giorno sees his writing fitting into and extending the tradition of humourous writing by immigrants, from Chico Marx, to Louis Prima and Pat Cooper. He recognizes the various ways in which he and other Italian-Canadian writers can now use humour, sometimes turning it on themselves, at other times directing it out toward the host culture. He states: “I use humour to examine some of the absurdities and dire situations I and my contemporaries faced growing up in Toronto ... I think the shift is that we are now laughing at our own cultural standards, seeing the irony, contradictions.” (e-mail 4/16/10) For Giorno, “Humour is the lubricant that allows us to live with adversity, overcome insults and injury to our pride without resorting to hostilities.” (e-mail 4/16/10)

Other Italian-Canadian writers are now using humour and irony to explore the correspondence between their Italian heritage and their experience of living in Canada, and to reconcile the tensions, gaps and friction between these cultures. These writers are finding new ways of writing home and I am indebted to them for sharing their thoughts and providing much helpful input on this topic.

Part III: Writing Home Through Public Discourse – Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

The third part of this essay considers writing by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, an Italian-Canadian who is writing home through his political and civic involvement. Born in Arezzo, Italy in 1949, he moved to Canada in 1952 and spent his youth in Montreal, Toronto and Baltimore. He returned to Toronto and became deeply involved in the flourishing Canadian literary scene in the 1970s. A trailblazer in Italian-Canadian literature (and a founding member of the AICW), Di Cicco has published over twenty volumes of poetry. In the late 1980s he stopped publishing poetry and withdrew to a monastery. Some years later he was ordained a Catholic priest; he resumed publishing in 2001. Di Cicco served as poet laureate of Toronto from 2004 to 2009; he is said to have “extended the role beyond the area of arts advocacy and into the realm of ‘civic aesthetic,’ a term he coined to define building a city through citizenship, civic ethic, and urban psychology.” (3) He posted a series of monographs on his web site as one means of engaging in dialogue with citizens about how to create a sustainable, stimulating city that would promote creativity and foster civility. In 2007 he published Municipal Mind: a manifesto for the creative city, a collection of prose writings that focus on civic engagement and the social and psychological aspects of urban life in the modern multicultural city.

Di Cicco attributes much of his strong interest in civic affairs, and his dedication to the idea of community, directly to his Italian roots. His political vision is simple but profound and consistent with his poetic disposition and Catholic faith: he asserts that we must cultivate genuine community, manifested in civility, hospitality and expressions of mutual respect for the other. In an interview given in 2004, Di Cicco credits Toronto’s “pro-multicultural climate for nurturing his development as a citizen and as a poet.” (Toronto Star (B3) 10/9/04) In personal correspondence (e-mail 2/24/04) Di Cicco wrote: “[I] saw the ethos of values at the heart of ‘italianità’ had to do with a metaphysic that was transubstantive and catholic ... What [I] was trying to do as a poet for a long time [was] to flesh out, to ‘incarnate’ the axioms of love [I] felt in the marrow of ‘italianness.’”

There is a very strong correspondence between Di Cicco’s political manifestos and the poetry he was writing and publishing around this time in The Honeymoon Wilderness (2002) and The Dark Time of Angels (2003). Di Cicco’s pronouncements as Poet Laureate frequently reiterate his poetic musings, often using only slightly different language. He examines ideas about civility, public space and public art, creativity, and how we live together and try to make it work. He is a strong ambassador for multiculturalism, but not a zealous cheerleader for the cause who lacks critical awareness. In his postings as Poet Laureate, he offers up observations that are candid, realistic and optimistic, and analysis that is usually charitable but also incisive and sometimes distinctly edgy. The monographs and manifestos in Municipal Mind are, in effect, the carefully articulated reflections and prescriptions of a poet/legislator.

In fact, Di Cicco not only practices combining poetry and politics, he also preaches it as a strategy for raising people’s consciousness about civic responsibility. He advocates for trying to heighten people’s receptiveness to beauty in the physical world, and promotes the idea that such a “poetic” sensitivity should translate into an increased sense of civic pride and engagement.

In his inaugural speech as Poet Laureate (on September 29, 2004), he explained how poetry could play an integral role in helping the citizens of Toronto to enhance the quality of their civic interactions. He stated:

Poetry is not something sitting on a page. It is a way of life, a way of being, a way of interacting that sometimes finds its expression on the page; and the pages of poetry may teach people how to live poetically, or more precisely, with passion ... Passion is about taking risks in any sector of endeavour, for the good of many and for the elevation of the human spirit. And passion is the way we encourage each other to those ends. Poetry is the record of that passion and the rallying cry for that passion.

Di Cicco has written about trust as “a civic resource” and says cities must be attentive to how this trust is eroded and eventually negated by the imposition of certain kinds of policies, bylaws and procedures. As Poet Laureate he examines the idea of faith, not in the religious sense but rather in a secular sense, as an indispensable public virtue. He develops the idea that secular faith is akin to religious faith in that both have to be cultivated – believed in and hoped for. One direct consequence of this notion of civic faith is that we create and are responsible for the world we inhabit, and for each other, personally and socially. This is an example of Di Cicco’s transposing principles from his religious life into the civic arena.

Di Cicco is a compelling figure and one who has made a significant contribution to Italian-Canadian literature, and to Canadian political life, especially in Toronto. His engagement in civic life clearly demonstrates his commitment to the values of Canadian multiculturalism, but it also speaks to the deep influence of his Italian cultural heritage, something he feels in the very marrow of his bones. His writing – both his poetry and his political manifestos – provides clear evidence that he has found different creative outlets for working through the competing and complementary cultural influences that constitute his identity.

In conclusion, the examples that I have cited here, from di Michele’s novel, Tenor of Love, to the humourous poetry of Capilongo and Giorno, and to the political pronouncements of Di Cicco, demonstrate that Italian-Canadians are continuously re-inventing ways of writing home. They are finding creative ways of exploring and expressing the rapport between these two great cultures and nations. This writing makes a unique and important contribution to the development of Canadian identity; it also reminds us of the challenges and the rewards experienced by those who share and try to bridge the lived experience of these two cultural worlds.

Works Cited

Capilongo, Domenico. I thought elvis was italian. Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2008.

Di Cicco, Pier Giorgio. Municipal Mind: manifestos for the creative city. Toronto: Mansfield, 2007.

_____. The Dark Time of Angels. Toronto: Mansfield, 2003. 

_____. The Honeymoon Wilderness. Toronto: Mansfield, 2002.

Di Michele, Mary. Tenor of Love. Toronto: Penguin, 2004.

Giorno, Frank. Arrivederci, Plastic-Covered Couch. Toronto: Lyricalmyrical, 2008.

Iuliano, Susanna, and Loretta Baldassar, “Deprovincialising Italian Migration Studies” in Flinders University Languages Group Online Review, Volume 3, Issue 3, Nov. 2008.

McLuhan, Marshall. In Quotable Canada – a national treasury. Ed. John Robert Colombo. New York: Running Press, 1998.

Rasporich, Beverly. “Canadian Humour and National Culture.” Canadian Cultural Poesis: Essays on Canadian Culture. Eds. Garry Sherbert, Annie Gérin, and Sheila Petty. Waterloo (ON): Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2006, 51-66.