La Venefica: The Medicine Witch

 

According to the book, Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100, La Venefica was an herbalist but a "poisoner." This was going on around the 8th century but also continued into the 1400s where midwives were often viewed as "murderers" and "poisoners." For some, there needed to be a clear distinction between what was "good" and what was "evil" so veneficus had its opposite, beneficus, "one who is beneficent." 

I have started a new poem, "La Venefica," that I plan to include in my poetry manuscript, Abramo e Agata. At this time I plan to adding it to my section of poems that are narrated by La Madonna dell' Arco, one of the Black Madonnas of southern Italy but who has devotees around the world. In my poem, I am connecting La Madonna dell'Arco with La Venefica, the one who heals and the one who destroys. La Madonna dell'Arco is the voice who comes through at the beginning of my book.  So in the first section she is the narrator. The voice is primal; the Great Mother; Anima Mundi; the World card in the tarot. 

When I started working on my manuscript and my central narrator, Abramo, a young Napoletano, who is a POW in Lordsburg, NM, I saw him praying  to and worshipping La Madonna dell'Arco, whose sancutary is in Sant'Anastasia, a town at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius, within the municipality of Naples, Italy. I imagine my nonna, Grazia Napoletana, as a young girl going to that church. I have no evidence of that only what I imagine. Only what I create in my poetry.

When I first saw images of La Madonna dell'Arco, I was drawn to the scar on her face. immediately knew, could feel that She understands suffering. A young man lost his temper and threw a ball at the La Madonna dell'Arco's painting and her left cheek started to bleed. The bleeding eventually stopped, but the scar is always there. The young man was convicted of blasphemy, and was hanged. There is no fairy-tale ending to this story. No one was forgiven. The harshness of that story seeps into the devotion of this Black Madonna. People who suffer, who experience violence, illness, possession of evil spirits, near drownings, etc. all go to Her for healing and protection.

Follow me in this dance,

across the ocean,

the desert,

the swamp,

the dungeon,

the prison,

we will find the bones

in the cave.

I promise,

but that is not all of the story,

and no word will be

created for this,

what is left,

now and forever,

the humming of the bees,

the silence.

from my poem, "Dark Moon: La Madonna Promises"

"Poetry of Place" New Mexico Magazine

                         

 "Poetry of Place" New Mexico Magazine

Above is the link to Levi Romero and Michelle Otero's profile, "Poetry of Place: A Selection of Poems from the New Mexico Poetry Anthology book that "defines the essence of the Land of Enchantment." This profile was published in New Mexico Magazine, June 14, 2023.

I recently discovered my poem, "Animas, New Mexico 1945" was included in this profile. I am honored my poem was selected, and I am honored my poem is included in such a beautiful anthology. At this time the anthology is still available on Amazon, Thriftbooks, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, and Museum of New Mexico Press.

New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023

My poem, "Animas, New Mexico 1945" is included in this anthology.

"New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023 is an 'ode and homage to nuestra querencia, our beloved homeland." Two hundred original, previously unpublished poems explore themes such as community, culture, history, identity, landscape, and water. From a diverse group of poets, the poems are introspective and personal; reflective and astute; steady and celebratory. Including poignant, unique, even humorous perspectives on life in New Mexico influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, this collective of voices serves as a welcome remedio to all aspects of post-pandemic life, for ears aching for words of beauty, strength, and solace as we emerge from the cocoon of survivability.' "

from New Mexico State Library Poetry Center

Italian POW in Lordsburg, New Mexico

Almost a year since my poetry book, Atterrando, was published by Epigraph Books, and I have decided to spend some time this summer on promoting my book. I am done with my 2024-2025 year of teaching and it feels like the right time to give my book the attention it deserves.

I am also going to return to my work-in-progress, Abramo e Agata. This book-length manuscript is a collection of dramatic monologues centered on Abramo, an Italian prisoner of war imprisoned at the internment camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico. I began writing these poems during my sabbatical (which started in January 2020), but by March, I was in lock-down with my daughter and very much in "survival mode." I lost my way in with that manuscript and then once in a while, I would write a poem or two. Somehow the characters in that world would call me back. And here I am again, feeling my way back to the thread of that collection. 

More to come but here is an image that has helped me find my way back . . . 

 

Atterrando

My first book of poetry, Atterrando, has finally been published. After years of rejection from so many poetry competitions, publishers, etc. I decided to self-publish with Epigraph Publishers. And now the book is here in the world. I learned so much going through this experience, and it still is a bit overwhelming.

Self-publishing is expensive. That is the truth about it. I spent a lot of money getting this done, and now I will have a box of books that I need to promote and sell. So even after you pay for the book getting published, you are then paying for copies that you need to sell. I am hoping that I can sell the 20 copies I purchased and get my money back, but who knows?

Now, I have to deal with my complete disinterest and even at times, hatred, of self-promotion. I will be trying to sell my poetry book in a world that really does not care if my work is out there or not. The world is not waiting for my poetry to come into existence. However, I also know that my purpose in this world is to be a poet. I know that and have known that since childhood. But my life's purpose has nothing to do with a high salary in a profession that most people would value or care about. 

It's been a long time since I wrote in my blog. I have spent most of my time, living in my house, caring for my cat and my garden, and I have been teaching. I would like to say that I wrote a poem every day or even wrote one a week, but that has not happened. Once in awhile I write. At this point in my life, I have to accept I am not and have never been a writer that sits at a desk every day for hours, writing. There are fallow times, times of letting it all decompose in a way, and even rot. I am not always producing, finding a poem to describe how the sky looked in the early morning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. No, I go through fallow times as a writer where it is all buried deep, perhaps in a cave or even at the bottom of the ocean, and nothing is coming through, no light at all.

But last year I decided to gather up all of these poems and actually make a book. I do have two published chapbooks, but not a book, and it was time. I had hoped a small, independent publisher who have read my work and offered me this unconditional love and acceptance. But that has not happened, so I had to do it myself. 

So my book of poems that I have brought into the world with my own blood, sweat, and tears, is here. And the title, Atterrando, is an Italian word (a verb) that means: "landing; knocking down; burying the dead; bending to the ground." Yes, all of that for myself and for my ancestors. The knocking down, the landing, and certainly the burying of the dead.

Stranded in Albuquerque

Salus Populi Romani. She is the Protectress or the Salvation of the Roman people. I find myself looking at her image once in a while. I feel comforted by this beautiful Madonna. Hiding from the world around me, I have forgiven myself for not writing a 400-page poetry manuscript during this time.

For a long time, I just kept saying "I can't . . ." I had planned to travel to Italy in May, to visit the Santuario di La Madonna di Montevergine in Mercogliano. I had also planned to spend time in Naples and visit the Santuario Madonna dell'Arco and its Ex-Votos Musem.  That plan disappeared by mid-February. No traveling anywhere. By March it was clear all I needed to do was protect myself and my child. I convinced myself that in a month or two, everything would be safe.

But I did not know that so many people don't care about people over the age of 50. That for me and so many others, we are left isolated, alone, on the margins. Who cares if we are suffering from depression, anxiety, despair?

But recently in the heat wave of mid-July, where every day it felt like we were burning alive--extreme heat and smoke from the nearby forest fires, I opened up a notebook. In the heat and the smoke,  I wrote a poem about Medea, the Poison Queen, and from her point of view, I was able to speak. The poem is rough, but I will work on it.

After that I began to look at my book project that I started during my sabbatical. I try to have daily contact. I listen for the voices. Have they abandoned me? I don't have all my books. But why do I need them? I left them in my office, in a space where I felt safe. Now I am listening to the dry wind late in the day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. No rain. Just wind drying all the plants. My sad, little garden looks half-dead, not dead but not really alive.

Every morning I wake up and try to remember what it felt like to wake up and to not be living in a pandemic.

Finding A Way Through the Fallow Months: Madonna Dell'Arco Hear My Prayer

It has been a while. I am finishing with a semester of teaching and am facing my semester long sabbatical. I have already started research on my creative project. Yes, for my sabbatical I am dedicating myself to my creative writing, but it will involve quite a bit of scholarly research.

I am also facing another round of rejections from my poetry submissions to journals and rejections of my poetry manuscript. Back to the idea of self-publishing. Why not? It may be the way to get more of my work out there into the world.

I did receive Honorable Mention for the 2019 Lauria/Frasca Poetry Prize from Bordighera Press. In addition a selection of my poems from the manuscript will be published in Voices in Italian Americana, 31.1 to be published in spring 2020. I am really looking forward to that. I will also be reading a selection of my Dawson, New Mexico poems at the 2020 NeMLA conference in Boston, MA. My plan is to add a few more poems to that series--I have a few in draft form--narrative voices from the dead.

Madonna dell/Arco has been haunting me these days. Since I learned about her I have been watching Youtube videos and staring at images of her on vintage prayer cards. The story resonates for me and in addition, she is considered one of the Black Madonnas. Perhaps because I see myself as an outcast in some ways, living in the borderlands literally and metaphorically, marginalized, and at times voiceless, La Madonna dell/Arco speaks to me.

This time of year is always difficult to get through. So many memories and so much energy spent on nostalgia and what has passed. I don't usually write a lot during the winter--it is usually my time for hiding from whatever is going on in the world. But with this sabbatical, I must start my process of creating despite the cold, and the longing to just hide under a blanket for a few months.

So I have surrounded myself with books about WW II and Italy. I am now reading Naples '44 and finding it horrifying for so many reasons--the racisim, the insensitivity to the women who were forced into prostitution because they and their families were starving to death. I have been thinking about my mother who was a young woman during that time, living in San Giorgio del Sannio. What did she and her sisters experience? It weighs on me.

My mother did not share those stories with me or any of her children. So with the cold weather settling here in Gallup, New Mexico, I am reading about the bombings, the rapes, the diseases, the death that all went on. But none of that was discussed in my childhood Long Island home. It was as if it had never happened. But it did. And now my eyes are opening up to it. This is where my creative work comes in. To bring a voice to the voiceless. Even if the sky is gray this cold, unforgiving December afternoon.