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

Posted on December 16, 2011December 17, 2011 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.

An Open Job Application to the National Post

Posted on December 10, 2011December 17, 2011 by Rocco

Dear Human Resources Department.

My name is Rocco de Giacomo, and I am a published poet, blogger and personal essayist. I have always been a fan of your newspaper and I am very interested in becoming a full-time editorialist on your staff. Please note that the National Post is the first website I visit in the morning and the last one I read before I turn in after a long day. I believe, after many years of reading your opinion columns, that I have what it takes to make great contributions to your team. Did I mention that I am a fabulous team player?

To be honest, the idea of acquiring gainful employment at your publishing enterprise is a recent one, but make no mistake, yours is the only newspaper in Canada that I have wanted write for. Although I am also a fan of the editorials in The Globe and The Star, their columns seem so bland, without an ounce of punch. For my part, what interests me is anything strident, combative and totally from the hip, so to speak. In other words, a man talks about a cure for cancer: snore city; but if he beats up the whole orchestra, I’ll read it! And nothing too involved or complicated! I hate it when things get complex – that makes my head hurt!

As I said, my decision to join your ranks is a recent one. Though thinking about it, it must have been brewing in the back of my head for a while. I remember reading Barbara Kay’s piece on male circumcision, “A painless, live-saving surgery” – Ouch! Just kidding; it’s painless! Anyway, there’s a part where she says that though circumcision is known to reduce sexual pleasure later on in life, in her opinion this is a good thing because it would reduce male promiscuity and make them more inclined to stay in long-term, meaningful relationships. Well, I have to tell you, when I read that, I thought to myself “hey Rocco, wouldn’t that have been a fun and easy thing to write? Just punch in whatever comes to mind and blammo! Paycheque!” Then there was the time when I was reading a column by Rex Murphy – host for the government–funded CBC Radio, commentator for the government-funded CBC Television, and an all around self-reliant SOB who would never take a dime from Big Government! Well, he had written an column entitled The Heroism of the Unsung Self, and in it he reminisces about the Canadians of old, and how tough and rugged and independent they were and how if we could only get these lazy bums off the government teat – my word, not Rex’s! – they’d toughen up and be able to build a boat with their bare hands like some old guy he knew back home. Well, gosh. I read that and I was like “hey Rocco, the boss just gives you a blank cheque and a Dell laptop and says ‘have at her, hoss’. Awesome!”

But what really made me shout “sign me up!” was this week’s column by Tasha Kheiriddin, The welfare state isn’t pleasing anyone, where she theorizes that all these government programs have made Canadians politically apathetic and spoiled, and if we could only scale back Big Government, then all these welfare-collecting couch potatoes would be forced to get off their butts and get involved! A phenomenal theory and thank God Tasha said “screw it” and posted that bad boy before she did any fact-checking. If she had, she might have learned that the Netherlands – a far better example of a nanny state than Canada – has a voter turnout of 75%, while the US – the Grand Poobah of small-government states – has a turnout hovering around 40% (Canada’s turnout is smack-dab in the middle, around 60%). Now, having to take that into consideration would have spoiled everything. I tell you, you can always count on facts to throw a monkey wrench in all the fun.

And that’s what I like about you guys: you don’t let facts get in the way of opinions, proudly born and raised in the gut.

So how about it? Could I have the honour of joining your team? I’ve even got some column ideas in mind. How about something like “We’re All Addicted to Big Government”? The whole government-as-illegal-drug angle? Or how about something a little more subtle like: “Occupiers should pack up their tents and go home.”

Well jeeze, I know Lorne Gunter has already got dibs on those titles, but tell you what? How about me and him arm wrestle for them, the way editorial columnists used to do it back before the whole researching and fact-checking thing?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

ps What’s with having no capital letters in your headlines?

Dear Occupy, Get a Leader Already

Posted on November 20, 2011November 20, 2011 by Rocco

I love you guys. I love what you stand for. I love how you are braving the cold weather, rubber bullets (in some cities) and police batons to face down an out-of-control capitalist system which, in its mildest form, depends on the average person to spend what they can’t afford (thanks to a decades-long, near-freeze in average wages) on things they don’t need. At its worst, it’s a cleptocracy – as in the States – where the system not only lets the individuals who caused the global meltdown to go unpunished, but actually rewards them with higher positions of wealth and power. Occupiers, I have the utmost respect for your resolve to go face-to-face with the riot police who are paid with your tax dollars to protect those who caused all the problems in the first place.

Problem is, I’m an easy sell. You had me at hello. It’s not me you have to convince. It’s the great number of other people in my tax bracket who you need on your side and who, after two months, still don’t know what the hell you want. Fact is, if I wasn’t one to keep my ear to the political ground, I wouldn’t know what you wanted either. Even more, I’m willing to bet, dollars to donuts, I would probably dislike you as much as National Post readers, if I didn’t bother to sift the BS that much of the right-wing media is lobbing at you.

However, two things you need to know: much of the BS is picked, ripe and ready from your own camps.

First, the plethora of youtube videos depicting crowds of you chanting and repeating the words shouted at you from the microphone of one of your delegates (something that immediately brings to mind a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brain – we are all individuals!). Second, from the interviews on TV and radio, hosted by right-wing stations. For example 1010 Newstalk Radio, in Toronto. On the eave of the Occupation of St. James park, they hosted a mini-debate between Mark Carney – governor of the Bank of Canada – and one of your delegates who, through the debate’s entirety, felt compelled to address everyone as “my brother.”

This is nothing new. All movements which upset the status quo are subject to redicule, slander and scrutiny.

But you needn’t make it so easy for your detractors. Movements thrive off of momentum, but after two months, the short attention span of the general public ( which you so badly need on your side) has already shifted to much more important things, like Justin Beiber’s concert baby and Kim Kardashian’s divorce. Accordingly, with the recent crackdown in NYC, you are setting yourselves up as glorious martyrs to those on your side, like me, and glorious failures to those that either are against you or have no idea WHY you are doing the things you do.

To hell with court decisions and legal aspects of your protest! What’s the point of a civil disobedience if you have to apply for a permit? The time is ripe for a leader to come forth, a representative, bold and loud, to articulate, in no uncertain terms, what you want. Imagine the civil rights movement without the personalities of Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X. No “I Have a Dream.” No “By Any Means Necessary.” To many, at the moment, you are a faceless mob from which your detractors can pick the most unpalatable to represent you to the general public.

I have a feeling that you find the idea of hierarchal structure repellent; that it’s your desire to operate from mass consensus, but the reality is that humanity, as it has developed, needs its icons. In other words, if you want to move forward and coalesce into an ideal that the full 99% can hold onto, you need to choose someone who can put a face to a clear and directed vision.

I suggest Kalle Lasn. What a better a candidate than one of the men who is not only behind the Occupy movement, but the co-creator of Adbusters magazine, and its various yearly protests. Kalle is not only trusted and beloved by his millions of fans, but he is someone who is learned, dynamic and incredibly creative.

Of course, this is just my suggestion. It will take a democratic vote to choose a leader. You should know, in the meantime, what bothers many those of us living in democracies – who take the time to vote in government elections – is being told “this is what democracy looks like” by a group of people who, as of yet, haven’t been able to choose someone to lead them.