Page 3 - Marino2005

2.3, September 2005
Nebula

do you compare yourself with very important writers such as Maria Mazziotti
Gillan, Rachel Guido DeVries, and Diane Di Prima?

T.M. I am embarrassed to tell you I do not know the work of the writers you
mentioned. I did find one in a recent anthology of Italian-American writing, and
admired DeVries's short poem about her father's losing his grocery store in a fire.

I never thought of myself as an Italian American writer while I was writing. That
happened after the books were published and the Italian American community

became the largest part of my readership, judging from the comments I receive on my
web page, and the invitations I have received to speak at Italian American events.

So I am sorry but I can't tell you how I fit into the Italian American writers scheme. I
am certainly not considered famous or important. I am one of many others like me.

But I am glad YOU singled me out.

E.M. Who are the writers that influenced you the most, then?

T.M. Let’s see who’s on my favourite shelf. Lots of Hemingway. I read almost
everything of his the winter I was writing Mattanza. They said in journalism school

that what you read the night before seeps into your writing the next morning. I think it
did. I also liked his advice to write just "one true sentence." That’s how it got written,
one true sentence at a time. I like Hemingway for his directness and for using just the

right fifty-cent word. John Hersey (Hiroshima, Bell for Adano), for his reporting and
clear declarative sentences; Norman Lewis, especially Naples ’44, for his sentences

hard as diamonds; Matilde Serao for writing so passionately about a place; Robert
Frost for seeing the macrocosm in the microcosm, and for the music of his verse, and

because of our common involvement with Vermont; Danilo Dolci for turning over
rocks and examining the underside; Rosario La Duca for being madly in love with

one’s city and knowing every little thing about it.

It looks like I don’t read anybody who wrote much past the 1950’s, and I have been

faulted for this. But you don’t have enough time in your life to read ALL the books,
so why not stick to the classics of every genre? But as I said, if someone I trust sticks

a book under my nose and says, "You must read this," I will. That is how I managed
to read Ann Proulx’s The Shipping News, and I am grateful to have read it.

Marino: …An Interview with Theresa Maggio 120