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Poetry Canadian

What We Pass On

Collected Poems: 1980-2009

by (author) Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Publisher
Guernica Editions
Initial publish date
Jan 2010
Category
Canadian
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781550715064
    Publish Date
    Jan 2010
    List Price
    $9.99

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Description

In What We Pass On: Collected Poems: 1980-2009, Maria Mazziotti Gillan weaves a tapestry of one woman's life - wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, grand-daughter, Italian American. Reading these poems in one volume makes us acutely aware of how memory is layered, each new poem adding another detail, another color, another perspective so that we watch as the poet and the people around her change. With increasing clarity and honesty, Gillan peels away all the self-protective layers and invites us in so we can see in her story a reflection of our own. Her work in all its texture and exuberance, its passion and power, forces us to care about what matters and teaches us to be human. This is a poet who, in these courageous poems, teaches us why poetry matters and why it can change us.

About the author

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic Country Community College, and Editor of the Paterson Literary Review. She is the author of over a dozen works. Among her many honors, she received the 2008 American Book Award, and 2011 Barnes and Noble Writers For Writers Award. Other awards received by Gillan include the May Sarton Award, the Fearing Houghton Award, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships in Poetry, and the American Literary Translators Association Award through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pietro di Donato award, and the John Fante award from the Sons of Italy in America. She lives in New Jersey.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan's profile page