O to Be Italian in Toronto: Mary Di Michele's Elegies

Abstract

In this paper I want to trace the elegiac strain in Di Michele's poetry, from its focus on personal loss to its more recent focus on broader political issues. Early on, that is, the focus of Di Michele's narrative of loss is specific: on family and Italy, the family home and homeland. Gradually, however, the narrative's focus becomes broader until, in Luminous Emergencies, the elegiac form is transformed from the poet's mourning the loss of a specific person or place, to her mourning a loss that is so universal, so enormous in its scope, that the poet's task is to personalize it.