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The Immigrants' New Camera
"Reading this book is like sitting down to a large Italian meal. Maryfrances Wagner’s images are seasoned with the immediacy of Kansas City’s Little Italy, the family kitchen, the table with its stories, tender, painful, and humorous. The poet’s narratives simmer in the richness of the Italian-American experience. Yet, as the best poems do, Wagner’s poetry connects the reader to the universal, but with a hint of fresh basil and chopped tomatoes."
--Al Ortolani, author of On the Chicopee Spur
--Al Ortolani, author of On the Chicopee Spur
- GenresPoetry
194 pages, Paperback
First published October 24, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 16, 2019
THE IMMIGRANTS’ NEW CAMERA: A FAMILY COLLECTION
(Spartan Press 2018) ISBN: 978-1-946642-70-7
Once again, poet Maryfrances Wagner has penned a collection of in-depth, well-crafted poems in The Immigrants New Camera. Her forte remains the narrative poem that includes detailed depictions of interesting characters, and this collection will not disappoint her fans.
First, I urge readers not to be misled by the title. Although the author’s heritage contains immigrants, she is neither an immigrant, nor is this work a diatribe about the current political situation concerning immigrants. In fact, she wrote many of these poems, including those from her chapbook, Pouf! (about her Aunt Mary, who expressed her wish, “I want people/to talk about how good I looked even dead”) long before the current national situation concerning immigrants escalated.
Nevertheless, the collection also contains a glossary of Italian words appearing intermittently throughout these poems. Further, some of the most moving poems, such as those from her childhood, reflect life “lessons” derived from Italian teachings of how to act.
Moreover, all these poems—including those focusing upon her immigrant relatives--display a mastery over the genre. Her use of rhythm and sound continue to delight readers. But the poems that touched me the most center around childhood memories, especially of her brother, and scenes from heated experiences with her former husband, a Viet Nam vet.
And some of those childhood memories reveal some of the values of her immigrant elders, such as her Nonna. For instance in “Lesson,” which alludes to the motto, “Children should be seen, not heard,” she recreates images of memories with her grandmother:
I hide in Nonna’s bedroom closet,
past winter’s nubby sweaters,
past hem-torn drapes
where she can’t find me.
I fold myself into a basket,
a blanket over me, quiet,
as the child combing pink doll hair,
while Nonna kneels into prayers . . . (32)
Here, too, her imagery continues the “hiding” metaphor, as if the poet fears being caught voicing the “wrong words.” “Nonna taught me to push back/words that try for speech/from the throat’s darkest basement” (32).
Likewise, the immigrant moré of children, especially the female children, “remaining silent” appears in “Learning to be Small,” which simultaneously reveals what may have helped the poet develop an imaginary world:
In my corner of our hallway,
I take tea with Alice and Mad Hatter.
Here’s my royal towel-cape,
my small altar where I hear
the prayer of Shhhhhh,
where I wait to be spoken to,
to be blessed with bonbons
for being a quiet girl (34).
More of the child persona’s hidden activities appear in the poems about her brother. Ten years her elder, her brother was a teenager when the poet witnessed his actions. Thus, “My Brother’s Room” reveals the images a seven-year-old girl focuses upon when snooping in his bedroom.
The Vargas playing cards lounged on his dresser
where anyone could find them.
By the time I was seven, I had combed
his room daily for licorice, Juicy Fruit gum,
and the unfamiliar. I read his pirate
paperbacks, examined whatever he
left out: emerald cuff links, ticket stubs,
glass bowl of trinkets, a girl’s earring.
I wondered where he went every night
in a clean shirt my mother pressed (24).
In ”Magic Feet,” Wagner reveals not only her brother’s failings, but his ability to turn them around, at least with their mother:
When he failed chemistry,
spent grocery money on comic books,
broke his retainer again, my mother chased
my brother Anthony around the table, yardstick,
a foil plunging after him.
He always joked her into a good laugh,
and she never delivered a blow.
Somehow they ended up dancing (26).
Several poems here appeared in previous Wagner collections, such as Red Silk’s title poem. In “Red Silk,” the persona describes a gift her husband sent from overseas,” . . . five yards of red silk/woven with white patterned leaves” (78). As in many of her poems, this exquisite poem, describes the beautiful silk, then turns it into a metaphor for the deterioration of a marriage—a decline caused by illness and injury resulting from the Viet Nam war. Likewise, “Wedding Night,” “First Month,” and especially “Ambush,” all from Red Silk, create metaphors of a world—and marriages—turned topsy-turvy by an unjust war.
“Wedding Night” alludes to that war: “I was a kink in this knot of wounded soldiers,/a phantom limb. Four would go back/to Fitzsimmons for skin grafts, a new arm,/throat surgery, a rebuilt jaw” (80). Referring to the marriage between the persona and the soldier, “First Month” reminds the reader during that time, often there was “[n]o time for the flirt of eyes,/the clasp and nestle of limbs, the sizzle of foggy/kisses once savored on the old airport road . . .” (82).
And then, “Ambush” serves as an emblem of not only a marriage gone awry, but suggests a nation gone awry:
You returned after three days,
your jacket a sketch of stains,
your face gashed again.
Silhouetted in the doorway,
you rummaged through my purse,
elbowed me away when I lunged
for the strap, and shot out the door.
I trailed in your wake. My lipstick
rolled like a wasted shell . . . (85)
At first, I wondered why Wagner included these poems in this collection. Yes, they are excellent poems, some of her best. But how did they complement her more recent poems of immigrant families. After re-reading them, I realized that this nation has once more become as politically split as it was during the Vietnam era, a tragic wound in our Constitutional ideal of a righteous society. Today, it appears, we are witnessing a comparable wound.
Upon close examination, Wagner’s poems reveal that recurring political schism.
Well-done, Maryfrances.
—Lindsey Martin-Bowen, author of WHERE WATER MEETS THE ROCK (39 West Press 2017) and CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison (Paladin Contemporaries 2016).
(Spartan Press 2018) ISBN: 978-1-946642-70-7
Once again, poet Maryfrances Wagner has penned a collection of in-depth, well-crafted poems in The Immigrants New Camera. Her forte remains the narrative poem that includes detailed depictions of interesting characters, and this collection will not disappoint her fans.
First, I urge readers not to be misled by the title. Although the author’s heritage contains immigrants, she is neither an immigrant, nor is this work a diatribe about the current political situation concerning immigrants. In fact, she wrote many of these poems, including those from her chapbook, Pouf! (about her Aunt Mary, who expressed her wish, “I want people/to talk about how good I looked even dead”) long before the current national situation concerning immigrants escalated.
Nevertheless, the collection also contains a glossary of Italian words appearing intermittently throughout these poems. Further, some of the most moving poems, such as those from her childhood, reflect life “lessons” derived from Italian teachings of how to act.
Moreover, all these poems—including those focusing upon her immigrant relatives--display a mastery over the genre. Her use of rhythm and sound continue to delight readers. But the poems that touched me the most center around childhood memories, especially of her brother, and scenes from heated experiences with her former husband, a Viet Nam vet.
And some of those childhood memories reveal some of the values of her immigrant elders, such as her Nonna. For instance in “Lesson,” which alludes to the motto, “Children should be seen, not heard,” she recreates images of memories with her grandmother:
I hide in Nonna’s bedroom closet,
past winter’s nubby sweaters,
past hem-torn drapes
where she can’t find me.
I fold myself into a basket,
a blanket over me, quiet,
as the child combing pink doll hair,
while Nonna kneels into prayers . . . (32)
Here, too, her imagery continues the “hiding” metaphor, as if the poet fears being caught voicing the “wrong words.” “Nonna taught me to push back/words that try for speech/from the throat’s darkest basement” (32).
Likewise, the immigrant moré of children, especially the female children, “remaining silent” appears in “Learning to be Small,” which simultaneously reveals what may have helped the poet develop an imaginary world:
In my corner of our hallway,
I take tea with Alice and Mad Hatter.
Here’s my royal towel-cape,
my small altar where I hear
the prayer of Shhhhhh,
where I wait to be spoken to,
to be blessed with bonbons
for being a quiet girl (34).
More of the child persona’s hidden activities appear in the poems about her brother. Ten years her elder, her brother was a teenager when the poet witnessed his actions. Thus, “My Brother’s Room” reveals the images a seven-year-old girl focuses upon when snooping in his bedroom.
The Vargas playing cards lounged on his dresser
where anyone could find them.
By the time I was seven, I had combed
his room daily for licorice, Juicy Fruit gum,
and the unfamiliar. I read his pirate
paperbacks, examined whatever he
left out: emerald cuff links, ticket stubs,
glass bowl of trinkets, a girl’s earring.
I wondered where he went every night
in a clean shirt my mother pressed (24).
In ”Magic Feet,” Wagner reveals not only her brother’s failings, but his ability to turn them around, at least with their mother:
When he failed chemistry,
spent grocery money on comic books,
broke his retainer again, my mother chased
my brother Anthony around the table, yardstick,
a foil plunging after him.
He always joked her into a good laugh,
and she never delivered a blow.
Somehow they ended up dancing (26).
Several poems here appeared in previous Wagner collections, such as Red Silk’s title poem. In “Red Silk,” the persona describes a gift her husband sent from overseas,” . . . five yards of red silk/woven with white patterned leaves” (78). As in many of her poems, this exquisite poem, describes the beautiful silk, then turns it into a metaphor for the deterioration of a marriage—a decline caused by illness and injury resulting from the Viet Nam war. Likewise, “Wedding Night,” “First Month,” and especially “Ambush,” all from Red Silk, create metaphors of a world—and marriages—turned topsy-turvy by an unjust war.
“Wedding Night” alludes to that war: “I was a kink in this knot of wounded soldiers,/a phantom limb. Four would go back/to Fitzsimmons for skin grafts, a new arm,/throat surgery, a rebuilt jaw” (80). Referring to the marriage between the persona and the soldier, “First Month” reminds the reader during that time, often there was “[n]o time for the flirt of eyes,/the clasp and nestle of limbs, the sizzle of foggy/kisses once savored on the old airport road . . .” (82).
And then, “Ambush” serves as an emblem of not only a marriage gone awry, but suggests a nation gone awry:
You returned after three days,
your jacket a sketch of stains,
your face gashed again.
Silhouetted in the doorway,
you rummaged through my purse,
elbowed me away when I lunged
for the strap, and shot out the door.
I trailed in your wake. My lipstick
rolled like a wasted shell . . . (85)
At first, I wondered why Wagner included these poems in this collection. Yes, they are excellent poems, some of her best. But how did they complement her more recent poems of immigrant families. After re-reading them, I realized that this nation has once more become as politically split as it was during the Vietnam era, a tragic wound in our Constitutional ideal of a righteous society. Today, it appears, we are witnessing a comparable wound.
Upon close examination, Wagner’s poems reveal that recurring political schism.
Well-done, Maryfrances.
—Lindsey Martin-Bowen, author of WHERE WATER MEETS THE ROCK (39 West Press 2017) and CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison (Paladin Contemporaries 2016).
January 12, 2019
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.
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.
May 10, 2019
The earlier poems in The Immigrants' New Camera explore the immigrant experience of Maryfrances Wagner's older Italian-American family members. From there, the poems go on to examine her experiences growing up in a big community-oriented Italian family. There's lots of eating, drinking, some anti-Italian discrimination at school, and plenty of colorful characters among the extended family--for instance, Uncle Nene, who keeps bringing home squirrel, beaver, and whatnot to cook. I felt like the collection was at its least compelling with a series of poems that seem to be about a partner who was traumatized by his service in the Vietnam war. However, it takes a turn for the better (albeit in a sad way) when it returns to poems focusing once again on parents, aunts, and uncles--only this time looking at them at the diminished, heartbreaking end of life.
I thoroughly enjoyed the authentic, narrative, accessible quality of Wagner's poetry throughout this collection. I have several favorites, including "My Brother's Room" (p. 24), "Hands" (p. 60), and "Backyard Wishing Well" (p. 61). However, my absolute favorite would have to be "Giant Clown" (p. 100), probably because, I too, find clowns terrifying. This particular poem is kind of a ghost story in miniature. Here's a taste:
When Mother killed cancer pain
with methadone, she was certain
elves built puppets at night across the street,
cows stomped through the house.
Those things aren't really there,
I insisted. It's just the medicine.
One afternoon she added,
Last night I saw a giant clown
outside the window.
A clown? I asked.
What did he look like?
Other books The Immigrants’ New Camera reminds me of: The Clancys of Queens: A Memoir by Tara Clancy, because both books feature close-knit Italian-American families full of funny and colorful characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed the authentic, narrative, accessible quality of Wagner's poetry throughout this collection. I have several favorites, including "My Brother's Room" (p. 24), "Hands" (p. 60), and "Backyard Wishing Well" (p. 61). However, my absolute favorite would have to be "Giant Clown" (p. 100), probably because, I too, find clowns terrifying. This particular poem is kind of a ghost story in miniature. Here's a taste:
When Mother killed cancer pain
with methadone, she was certain
elves built puppets at night across the street,
cows stomped through the house.
Those things aren't really there,
I insisted. It's just the medicine.
One afternoon she added,
Last night I saw a giant clown
outside the window.
A clown? I asked.
What did he look like?
Other books The Immigrants’ New Camera reminds me of: The Clancys of Queens: A Memoir by Tara Clancy, because both books feature close-knit Italian-American families full of funny and colorful characters.
September 2, 2021
Being from Kansas City, and growing up in an Italian family from the Northeast side, I loved the references to known places and things in this book of poems. Wagner's imagery is beautiful and her writing absolutely stunning.
May 13, 2023
Lovely collection of poems that touch on family, family history, the loss of the older generation replaced by a new generation who doesn't always know the stories, and dealing with prejudice. This would be a good one to read and reread later after you have time to digest it and mull the ideas.
January 27, 2024
memoir in poetry form
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews