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FEILE-FESTA
Spring 2015

Poetry

The Harbor of the World
- O. Arieti
Those Italian Boys
- I. Backalenick
Friendless Featherheads
- G. Beck
Spailpin
- K. Cain
Fashioning
- J. Campbell
King Street Comanche
- B. Foster
Santi
- L. Giulianetti
Poets Out of Service
- M. Johnson
Irish Farmer
- L. Kumar
Communion Portrait
- J. Lagier
Away
- M. Lisella
Connemara 2004
- C. Lloyd
Carrying Grandpa
- M. Lyon
The Saying of Mass
- C. Moore
Taking You home
- J. Mulligan
Departures
- P. Murray
Yiaprakophela
- P. Nicholas
Resurrecting Easter Sunday
- L. Pierro
Dublin Spirts
- F. Polizzi
Nun Ponnu/They Cannot
- N. Provenzano
Kate
- K. Retzlaff
Refuse
- C. Steinhoff
Strawberry Pickers, Cyprus
- J. Tarwood
Melina's Tarverna
- B. Thomas
No News
- R. Tremmel
Signs
- R. Volz
Broadway Bagel
- C. Wald
Taking My 8-Year-Old Daughter to Hear Seamus Heaney
- L. Wiley
My Mother Had a Relationship with Good Bread
- C. Young
Sicilian Traces
- A. Znaidi

FEILE-FESTA
Spring 2015

Prose

Augurina
- J. Amato
Moving Day, 1897
- D. Corrigan
My Madeleine
- F. Dunne
A Review Of Italoamericana: The Literature Of The Great Migration, 1880–1943
- G. Fagiani
The Immigrant's Grandson
- J. Giordano
Review of The Glass Ships
- R. Crupi Holz
A Sunday Afternoon
- R. Iulo
Dark Idyll
- T. Sanfilip
The Choir Book
- G. Sullivan
Review of My Two Italies
- T. Zeppetella

Featured Artist
Richard Holz

BIOGRAPHIES

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Nino Provenzano
(translated by Gaetano Cipolla)


Nun Ponnu / They Cannot

Li spuntuna di li zabbari,
li spini puntuti
di pali di ficurinia,
li ruvetti, l’areddara,
nun ponnu punciri,
grattari sfardari o firiri
lu carattari di li petri,
li rocchi e li scogghi
di st’isula chiamata Sicilia.

Ne` ponnu
grattari, sfardari o firiri
‘sta terra ginirusa antica,
chi cu lu suli d’oru
li nutrica.

Nun ponnu
sfardari o firiri
lu celu, l’acqua di lu mari,
l’alitu di lu ventu.

Ne` spini o spuntuna,
ne` l’armi di li cunquistatura
hannu pututu canciari
li biddizzi di natura
di st’isula magica,
tranquilla, tragica….
Bedda
comu lu surrisu di ‘na picciotta
cu li capiddi scioti a lu ventu,
chi osserva l’orizzonti
dunni lu celu, la terra, lu mari,
si funninu abbrazzati
in un attu d’amuri eternu.

      

The long spikes of the agaves
the sharp needles
on the prickly pear leaves,
the thorn bushes and the ivy
cannot prick
scratch, wear out or harm
the character of stones,
the cliffs and rocks
of this isle we call Sicily

Nor can they scratch
wear out or harm
this generous and ancient land,
that nurtures them
with its golden sun.

They cannot
wear out or harm
the sky, the water of the sea,
the breath of the wind.

Neither the thorns nor the pointed spikes,
nor the weapons of the conquerors
have been able to change
the natural beauties
of this magical island,
peaceful, tragic,
beautiful,
just like the smile of a young woman
with her hair blowing in the breeze
looking at the horizon
where sky, land, and sea
blend in embrace
in an act of everlasting love.