The Italian Diaspora

During most of my early adulthood I spent time in Latin America where I felt completely comfortable. The fact is that Latin America is a better fit for me it is Latin and Catholic and open. One of the things that I learned living in Latin America was the importance and how neglected the Italian Diaspora is. The fact that I use the term Italian Diaspora is odd to many literati but I must tell you that a mystical bond exists between those of us who come from the Italian pennisula. I have friends who are Italo-Brazilians, Italo-Argentines and Italo-Australians and I am Italian American and there is a bond, a link something that ties us together. Real Italians are pretty stupid in the sense that unlike other nations they have never learned to use these communities to their advantage. Greeks, Irish, Indians and many others do. But what interests me most as a poet is a dialogue between poets of the Italian Diaspora, what did we take from the land of Dante and Petrarcha to the lands of Whitman, Andrade, Borge and more? What have we brought forth in new lands? And what makes us and adds to us? I sit, I listen, and I am filled with the Glory of God, as Thomas Aquinas said; we need to listen and sit and be filled with the liturgy that is poetry sung from the world and from our Italian Diaspora.