What She Says About Love

I read the poems of What She Said About Love with a growing sense of their achievement, their expression of a particular and valuable voice. Here is a poet who understands that "The act of casting shape from chaos / breeds enemies." That refers to Michaelangelo, but it stands in for the poet generally, and especially one of who has Tony Magistrale's gifts. Poetry is the enemy of bland, boring, mass-produced speech. It is language intensified to a level of combat with the world. And Magistrale has managed to keep up the fight in poem after poem. This is a bracing, sweet, dark, and always moving volume of poems. I believe it will affect those who read it deeply. It deserves a wide audience. - Jay Parini, Middlebury College

"The Plan," which describes a Texas-style barbecue in a Venetian twilight, concludes: "In this most secreted city, I divulge no secrets / Content to wear my hat at rakish angle / Tend the grill, savor its sizzle," a characterization that neatly fits the many fine poems of Anthony Magistrale whose sizzle is sure to whet the appetites of readers. The tones may vary, from the moodiness of "Venetian Poems" to the playfulness of "Beware, the Bible Warns, of Fallen Women," but constant throughout are the intellectual alertness, the satisfying structures, and the vivid descriptions: the adjectives are often surprising, as in "dense, pasty Milanese rain," but almost always just right. "I Nemici" be gins: "The act of casting shape from chaos / breeds enemies." Magistrale's point is well taken here, but in this case it's much more likely to breed friends and admirers. - Michael Palma, Bordighera Poetry Prize Judge, 2007-2008