Keeping My Name

Keeping My Name bears the stamp of an assured poet already known in New Formalist circles for her work in meter and rhyme. With a distinctive blend of craft and deep feeling, clarity and subtle thought, Tufariello gives new resonance to the historical and mythic past and draws larger significance from contemporary life. Reflecting a particular interest in and compassion for the lives of women, past and present, the work's five sections offer a variety of repasts. One brings freshness and immediacy to women of the Old and New Testaments. Another traces the dissolution of a marriage; a third, the experience -- rarely represented in poetry -- of infertility and its high-tech treatment. At center, counterpoising contemporary poems of love and grief, is a series of translations from Petrarch and other classic Italian love poets. Tufariello addresses loss and longing, yet discovers joy in everyday things -- a walrus being fed at an aquarium, a small girl dancing at a wedding, a basketball game on a city playground. Her warmth, tempered by wit, is unsentimental. Readers who appreciate well-made, accessible poems will find much to savor here.