CELEBRATING
The Bordighera Poetry Prize and
25 Years of Bordighera Press
Friday, November 14, 2014, 6PM
The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute
25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10036
RSVP 212-642-2094
Lew, Daniela Gioseffi read a terrific poem from your Book of Fears tonight at the Bordighera party. I wish I could remember the title, but I laughed more than a couple of times. And nodded. And sat there satisfied. Thanks, George Guida.
AMATHOPHOBIA: The Fear of Dust
If she closes her eyes, before she can drop
off the edge of silence into sleep
she imagines the dust beneath her bed
clumping itself, sending out strands of hair
to gather more dust, become a ball of fuzz,
and then begin to search for other balls of dust
with which to copulate and reproduce.
If it is a daylight nap she tries to steal,
her eyes spring open to see the noontide sun
slipping through the blinds in laddered beams
down which the motes of dust climb one by one —
she feels them landing on her chest, her face,
she feels them searching underneath her bed
to be caught in strands of hair, become a ball
of fuzz. She sneezes. She coughs. She begins to wheeze.
She throws off her coverlet to rise,
cover her mouth, walk to the kitchen through
the laddered beams of light and dust to find
the mop, the rag, the vacuum cleaner she
put away before she lay down to nap.
By Lewis Turco from A Book of Fears: Un Libro Di Fobie with Italian Translations by Joseph Alessia (First Annual Bordighera Poetry Prize, 1), W. Lafayette, IN: BordigheraPress.edu, 1998, 58 pp., ISBN 1884419194, cloth. (O-P); ISBN 1884419208, paper.
So glad George liked your poem, Lew, re “The Fear of Dust, Amathophobia.” The Book of Fears is delightful. I will give George an extra copy that I have next time I see him, Daniela Gioseffi.
