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DANIELA GIOSEFFI

THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE | SPRING
| APRIL LOON | DANCING SONG FOR MY DAUGHTER
| WHEAT

DANIELA GIOSEFFI is a widely published author of poetry, fiction, translations, prose and literary criticism. Four recent books are ON PREJUDICE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE [Anchor Doubleday] WORD WOUNDS & WATER FLOWERS: and GOING ON, Poems [VIA Folios, Purdue University] and IN BED WITH THE EXOTIC ENEMY [Stories & Novella, Avisson Press, Greensboro, NC.] Daniela is a member of The National Book Critics Circle, PEN American Center, The Academy of American Poets and The Poetry Society of America. In 1990, she won the AMERICAN BOOK AWARD for WOMEN ON WAR [Simon & Schuster, recently reissued in an all new edition by The Feminist Press, 2003.] Her first book of poems, EGGS IN THE LAKE, [BOA Editions, Ltd.] contained poems which won an Award Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. She currently lives in New York City, but was born in Newark, New Jersey and educated in New Jersey public schools, attending Passaic Valley Highschool and Montclair University before going on to graduate school in Washington, D.C. to receive her MFA. She returned to live in New Jersey which she dubbed "The Poetry State," when founding Skylands Writers Association during the decade of the 90's. Robert Pinsky picked up the phrase, after Daniela had been instrumental in publishing many articles about New Jersey poets in The Star Ledger, The Sussex County Herald and other newspapers. She featured her fellow NJ poets at many readings in the Skylands and helped in the publication of the books of the deceased poet, Joe Salerno, while president of the Skylands Writers Association. The organization is now inactive, but Daniela publishes this website for the benefit of fellow NJ poets throughout the state. A bilingual publication of her new and selected poems: BLOOD AUTUMN will be published in 2006 by VIA Folios/Bordighera Press. In 2002, a verse of Daniela's was selected by Larry Kirkland Studios to be etched in marble on a wall of PENN Station in the Jersey Transit waiting room of the 7th Ave. Concourse. Poets, Walt Whitman and W.C. Williams, Allen Ginsberg, as well as Pwu Jean Lee, Ed Smith, and Renee Ashley where also selected by Kirkland when found on the SWAA website in 1999. Daniela has read widely throughout the USA and Europe and at many international book fairs as well as on radio and television, including for the BBC in London and NPR in Washington, D.C. She has taught poetry widely and given workshops in creative writing throughout the state and country. SAMPLE POEMS FOLLOW BELOW: linked at the top of this biographical note by title.

Wise Women's Web (now PoetsUSA.com):Edited by Daniela

Appearances by Daniela: Readings/Performances/Book Signings

Daniela's new project Winter 20001

Sample Poems from Word Wounds and Water Flowers, VIA FOLIOS 4 at Purdue University, 1359 Stanley Coulter Hall, West Lafayette, IN. 47907-1359.. ISBN 1-884419-03-8. Copyrighted © 1995 by Daniela Gioseffi. All rights reserved.

THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Through the "I" of the needle,
death is a country
where people wonder and worry
what it's like to live.
The sullen wish to live
and live soon
to be done with death
and the happy
want to stay dead
forever
wondering
will it hurt to live
and is there death
after
death?

APRIL LOON

by Daniela Gioseffi

One lone loon glides deep along the lake,
lost from her mate,
she wears a smart suit of black tweed,
checkered and flecked with white.
Her black dagger beak
spears a silvery fish, who glides by
as she dives to hide
from the Canada goose swimming too near.
After a long while she surfaces far off.

Ancient heavy boned bird,
different from all the rest,
superb diver, odd singer, loony, laughing like me,
at the beauty of spring,
feeling reborn
after the fear
of a heart seizure.

Blood gone from my womb circulates poorly now
through my chest
as wrinkles prepare me to want
less of life.
Oh, little peach beak of the goldfinch,
yellow as my forsythia bush
which droops its fountains of bright
blossoms over my walk,
oh, bright cardinal flower and bird,
amazing fresh green visions
amidst the thawing woods,
it is enough that April comes again
like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers,
April the kindest
month, reminding me it's enough
to live like a lonely loon lost
on a cool lake, just
to see the bank swallows swoop,
the iridescent tree swallow swarm
across the azure sky,
the barn swallow sail up with the loon's cry,
loony loon am I,
time a threat now
as I call my last cry
over the water, lakes of my eyes,
tears of my years,
like violins in my ears,
moans of the mourning dove.

Let the mocking bird mock all
and the cat bird meow,
let the woodchuck eat my tulips and lilies,
let the squirrels steal
the seeds I put out for the song birds,
let them all live as they please,
I can't help anymore, I can't grieve
the bombs that could be trees,
let me fall on my knees in the grass
and sleep in the meadow on an old deer path.
Let the aphids eat the roses,
the red squirrel chatter, the bee bite,
I'll fly like a loon gaining
air with my old dinasaur bones
over the valley imitating the soar
of the black vulture caught on a current,
searching for carrion,
clean up the death,
take the soul heavenward,
or leave it turned in the earth,
give me the yellow sighs of new green
spring, April the kindest month, enough
of being, just color and light,
sound and smell, song and sight, sweet
flute tunes of song sparrows,
wood or hermit thrushes,
flickery song of the northern flicker,
sing while I cry like a loon lost
in dandalion wine
and anemone, searching for the wood ducks who shyly fly,
white wing stripes on a blue sky, fluttering high
and higher, no clumsy flyer like the loon,
lost in its own wild, plaintive tune,
sing to this lone loon laughing on the lake,
tiny chickadee, grey
tufted titmouse, sing to me, whistle away,
fill my day with lazy wonder.
I'm tired of diving down and rising up
to gulp a silvery fish,
and want to float, heavy boned on the peaceful water,
no waves, no wind,
only gentle balmy ripples of spring. Sing to me
loony common lune tunes, a nocturnal laugh,
of how the last first green of life,
the last noon of sun,
the last glimpse of light
matters.

DANCING SONG FOR MY DAUGHTER

Stars dance their light
the night sky shivers.
Listening to wind,
dance, my daughter.

Wind wanders fields
singing in the wheat.
Hearing the wind's song
dance, my daughter.

Earth spinning holds
children in her skirts,
Feeling the moon's hands
dance, my daughter.
Love loosing sighs
in wet wounded eyes.
Buring my bones, smile
and dance, my daughter.

Love winning fills
all with Her power.
Seeing Her sunrise,
dance, my daughter.

Copyright ©1996 & 1998 by Daniela Gioseffi. All rights reserved. From Word Wounds & Water Flowers.

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