Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

You don’t have to be Italian or a first-generation American to join the Cusumano family. If you’ve ever made a virtual visit to Aunt Mary in the nursing home or tasted Maryfrances’ cooking (she shares her culinary delights at local poetry readings), you want to come back for more. This b00k is a collection of her family poems. I had heard or read most of them, but that didn’t hurt my pleasure. I’m an honorary Italian now; and, when family gets together, you want to hear the favorite stories again and again. They become richer in the retelling.

Thanks to these moving, funny, surprising, and heartbreaking poems, this family didn’t need a camera. Wagner has recorded their legacy in a down-to-earth way that goes far beyond camera range. I can’t imagine any reader not loving this book.

What happens when a future son-in-law brags, “I can drink anyone under the table now,” and Wagner’s mom answers, “I’ll take you on”? The woman drinks one highball on Christmas and one on new year’s day. Wagner and readers are shocked. No matter who wins, you know you’re in for some laughs. This is the same mother who kept her daughter in line with lectures like

“If you don’t fall asleep during your nap by four o’clock,
you’ll get polio.
Then you’ll have to live
in a big iron tank for the rest
of your short life.”
(“My Mother’s White Lies”)

Old World child-raising made Wagner feel she had to be very quiet, seen but not heard. In “Learning to Be Small,” she says, “I watch myself / watching myself watch.” In other words, she lets us watch as she becomes a poet, and that is an honor.

oooh! You intro'd me to Wagner and I've been a fan ever since.

Nina wrote: "oooh! You intro'd me to Wagner and I've been a fan ever since."

I'd worry about someone who didn't love her work. It was great to have the family poems altogether, though I loved her other book of 2018 (he Silence of Red Glass) that was more varied just as much. She has really wonderful teacher poems as well.