Italian Women in Black Dresses

This collection reads like a memoir, detailing the life of a family across generations and giving us a moving and haunting portrait of the Italian mother who is the centre around which this family revolves. The mother's stories and words shape the lives of her daughter and granddaughter, but this book is about much more than ethnicity. Gillan's work succeeds in transcending any single identity category and explores instead the multiple ways in which each of us learns to identify him or herself.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is the director of the poetry center at Passaic County Community College. She is the author of Where I Come From and Things My Mother Told Me.

Acknowledgments	p. 7
Black Dresses	p. 9
Blessed	p. 11
Perspectives	p. 13
The Past	p. 16
After School on Ordinary Days	p. 18
Sunday Mornings	p. 20
My First Room	p. 23
Gym Class	p. 25
Kitchen	p. 28
Taking a Risk	p. 30
Halloween Costume	p. 32
I Want to Write a Love Poem	p. 34
Parties	p. 36
Magic Circle	p. 38
My First Date	p. 39
Cafeteria	p. 41
In the Stacks of the Paterson Public Library	p. 43
The Bed I Remember	p. 45
What I Didn't Learn in School	p. 47
Dorothy	p. 49
Bed	p. 51
Going to the Movies in the 1950S	p. 53
Learning to Sing	p. 55
My Mother Who Could Ward Off Evil	p. 57
My Father Always Bought Used Cars	p. 59
Cheap	p. 61
So Many Secrets	p. 63
Winter Dusk	p. 65
When I Was a Young Woman	p. 67
The Cup	p. 69
My Mother-In-Law	p. 70
Nail Clippings	p. 72
Poem to John	p. 75
Window	p. 79
Rainbow Over the Blue Ridge Mountains	p. 80
Return	p. 81
Song in Praise of Spring	p. 82
Elvis Presley Is Alive and Well on Lincoln Avenue in Hawthorne, New Jersey	p. 83
The Herald News Calls Paterson a "Gritty City"	p. 84
The Great Escape	p. 86
Noise	p. 88
What I Do Is	p. 89
Breathing	p. 91
Sometimes I Forget That You Are Dead	p. 93
This Leaf	p. 95
I Don't Know	p. 97
The Story of My Day	p. 100
In My Family	p. 102
Doris Day	p. 104
Nancy Drew, I Love You	p. 106
Last Night My Mother Came Back	p. 109
Laura, Now That You Are Gone	p. 111
Since Laura Died	p. 113
The Dodge Silver Hawk	p. 115
Signposts	p. 118
A Geography of Scars	p. 120
In the New Millennium	p. 122
When I Leave You	p. 124
Grief	p. 126
These Are the Words I Have Said	p. 128
Poem to My Husband of Thirty-Three Years	p. 129
Traveler's Advisory	p. 130
Water Chestnut	p. 131
How to Turn a Phone Call Into a Disaster	p. 133
This Morning	p. 134
Shame	p. 138
Donna Laura	p. 140
Learning How to Love Myself	p. 142
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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Italian Women in Black Dresses

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials