I am indebted to Alan Humm — the editor of Britain’s One Hand Clapping magazine — for publishing my poem, “Benedizione”, in his journal’s Christmas issue. “Benedizione” is manifestly a love poem and it provides (I hope) welcome seasonal contrast to some of the other darker work I have written and published earlier this year (where the difficult topics addressed include gun violence in America).

“Benedizione” is set in Vicenza, in the North of Italy, only a few kilometres away from where my in-laws were born and raised. The poem is built upon upon fragments of an actual experience Lydia and I had there more than 20 years ago.

And as if having the poem published in One Hand Clapping were not enough, it was followed quickly by a fantastic bonus! Not long after it was published, I discovered on Twitter that “Benedizione” resonated sufficiently with the editorial collective of Pummarola magazine — a literary journal I much admire whose readership consists mostly of members of the Italian diaspora living in North America — that the collective tweeted in response to it:

We are enchanted and jealous – there are two wolves inside us! Enchanted because — read the poem. Read it. You’ll know why. Jealous — we can admit it, we are not above this — that WE didn’t publish it. @PWB_writer1, bravo, bravo. Più squisito.

How remarkably generous and kind!

You can read read “Benedizione” yourself and come to your own conclusions about it by clicking here.  And I encourage you to sample the magnificent poetry, fiction, essays and memoirs that are published by other contributors to both One Hand Clapping and Pummarola.