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American Rondeau is Carmine Di Biase’s first collection of poems, but it comes after a long career in teaching and writing about English and Italian literature. Some of these poems are in free verse, and some are experiments in traditional forms, including the villanelle, the pantoum, the ballad, the rondeau, the sonnet, the sestina, and the elegy. Some are inspired by Shakespeare, who has been the subject of much of Di Biase’s scholarly work; others are inspired by his experience as the child of Italian immigrants who came to the United States in the 1950s. All of these poems, however, are expressions of Di Biase’s uniquely American experience and his lifelong immersion in the English language, which he sees as an enduring refuge from an increasingly hostile and brutal world, besieged by greed, craven politicians, and diseases and environmental disasters caused by human depravity. And because he sees language as a refuge, his poetry shows a deep respect for precision and elegance, for accuracy of diction, and for the etymology of every word he uses. Di Biase believes that, especially with regard to poetry, the meanings of words must harmonize not only on the surface but well beneath the surface as well. He believes, moreover, that there is nothing free about free verse-that is, that even in free verse, the content must find and reveal and occupy its own unique form, the shape of which should be as close as possible to the shape of its contents. And whether a poem is in free verse or in a strict traditional form, such as the sestina, the voice of the poem must not sound strained or confined but at ease and natural, and must be a reflection of a genuine, beating, human heart. The reader’s awareness of the poem’s form, and of its etymological harmonies, must come as an afterthought that deepens one understanding of the poem. On a first reading, these poems are all immediately accessible expressions of a contemporary American experience. Second and third readings, so the author hopes, will be rewarded with discoveries.
