Author: Rocco

Rocco is based in Toronto. He has been published in over 30 magazines and literary journals in Canada and abroad, including Descant, Queens Quarterly, Event and Canadian Literature. He has appeared on radio specials in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and New York City and has been commissioned to write poetry by the CBC. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the arts ezine, Latchkey.net, and is working on his third collection of poetry, "Everything is Still Burning: 20 Travel Poems." Another collection, published by Fooliar Press, is expected in the fall of 2005 Rocco has travelled much throughout Europe and Asia and Canada and all the places and experiences reflect in his writing. He has worked as a garbage man, a research reporter, a rickshaw driver, a hard labourer, and presently an English instructor for new Canadian immigrants. He has launched his website not only to promote his own poetry and art, but also to open an online venue for other artists like himself, struggling for an audience and a stake in a little immortality.

Other People’s Poetry: Luciano Iacobelli

Posted on by Rocco

Two Poems:
 

      End of the Line

      Night Walk

 

 
 
Luciano Iacobelli is a poet, playwright and visual artist. In 1986 his first play, The Porch, was staged in Toronto. In 2000 he founded Lyricalmyrical Press, a grass-roots publishing company specializing in handcrafted chapbooks. More than 80 books have appeared under this imprint, many by very young writers whose work he has nurtured throughout his career as a creative writing and literature teacher at SEED, Toronto’s oldest public alternative school. Author of 7 chapbooks, The Angel Notebook, his first full-length poetry collection, was published in March of 2007 by Seraphim Editions.

 
 

Five New Year’s Resolutions I’ve Already Broken

Posted on by Rocco

1. I will cut out the weekend smoking. I tried, really. It lasted about two hours, then I had my first cigarette of the year at around 2:00 AM. About a decade ago, I disciplined myself into drinking only one night a week and smoking only when I drink. At the time, compartmentalizing, and therefore minimizing these vices was a great idea. However, like most people, I tend to deal with and eradicate problems only when they grow to a certain size. You’ve by now heard the expression “too big to fail”, yes? Well there’s a counter-point to that expression: “too small to bother with, even though this tiny little thing will kill me, or so my annoying ex-smoker friends tell me with their judgey eyes and, mind you, who should be more concerned with their own issues thank you very much and who the hell invited you over anyways?”

2. I will cut out the weekend drinking. I had planned on this being a dry New Year’s. But it was all Lisa’s fault. She suggested I go get a bottle of wine just in case. No, wait. She INSISTED I get some, if I recall correctly. Personally, between you and me, I think she likes it when I get tipsy, especially when we go to parties at her friends’ places. I can’t really understand this, because none of her friends really drink or smoke the way I do. The dominant theory I have for this is that in marrying my wife, I found the only person in the world, aside from myself, that thinks I adopt the charming cadence of Peter O’Toole when I’m a few sheets to the wind.

3. I will cut back on the gaming. Sorry. Again, I tried. But I’m the father of a 4-month old with bills to pay. Taking short vacations into the world of Skyrim just makes good economic sense right now.

4. I will eat better. This one went up in smoke the moment my sister offered me meat Samosa the size of a Bearclaw this afternoon. So carby, so oily, so good.

5. I will not swear at other drivers. Ummm, yeah: five minutes into the drive to my sister’s house this afternoon. To be honest, it was the spirit of this resolution that persuaded me to let the TTC bus pull ahead of me. Since I had never done this before, I was shocked to learn just how slow buses are. I mean, hair-pullingly slow. I couldn’t help but think that the bus driver was doing it deliberately because he knew I was late to my sister’s, not to mention the fact that I was starving because of New Year’s Resolution number four. Anyhoo, I swore, and it -as usual- felt mildly satisfying.

Almost as satisfying as rationalizing my way out of a series of unfortunate, and rather boring, new year’s resolutions.

Happy New Year!

 
 

Top Five Videos of 2011

Posted on by Rocco

5. Randall’s nature vids went viral early in 2011 and I still get belly laughs listening to his educational yet over-the-top-flamboyant descriptions of local and exotic fauna.

 

4. Bad Lip Reading is giving Autotune a run for its money this year, especially since finding a perfect home in the circus that is the GOP leadership race. “Hairy chests destroy our power” is probably the most honest thing that has come out of Newt Gingrich’s mouth in years.

 

3. Want to encourage someone to take an interest in complex political, social or scientific theories? Then this is the way to do it. These painstakingly crafted, stop-motion animations are both fascinating and informative to watch.


 

2. That this Onion news report has been making the rounds on Facebook for the better part of a year shouldn’t come as a surprise. Some see it as a clever critique of news media’s penchant for trivialities, others see it as just frickin’ hilarious.


 

1. It’s hard to believe they could top Jizzed in My Pants, but the boys at Lonely Island did it again this year by teaming up with Michael Bolton to produce this ridiculously funny club mix. I would have expected one of RSA’s animations to be in the top spot – or at least something of substance – but this is, a little tellingly, my most-played video for this year. Sigh and giggle.


 
 

Other People’s Poetry

Posted on by Rocco

 
Second Series

 
Yannos Ritsos 1909-1990
 

14.

In the white egg,
a yellow chick
a blue song

26.

The new moon
hides up its sleeve – you saw it? –
a knife

52.

Naked, astride an elephant,
the moon crosses the river.
Dewdrops shimmering at its feet.

61.

Guatemala, Nicaragua, Salvador.
Where did so many bodies go? On a tree, wind-swept,
a pair of worn trousers.

63.

Where is the time to light a cigarette,
to look at a star, to speak with a turtle,
to scratch your nose, and fart?

80.

Seek not, want not, be not.
I bite – he says – a bitter apple.
Freedom

104.

They tagged you an illiterate, those idle bureaucrats.
Unaware how on arid islands you memorized
the twelve Gospels of the Struggle.