Poetry. Mary Melfi's work appears unclassifiable. There are surrealist fireworks, gnostic philosophizing, black and white humor, an absurdist appreciation of the process of existence. Hers is not one voice, but rather a number of voices organized in a modern fugue: a counterpoint to its own cantus firmus. Swordfishes, swordsmen too, are equipped / to get along in life / but I'm equipped to be a dancer on the stars. / Your love is my equipment. (Sword Dances).

Stages (Essential Poets 77)

Literature & Fiction

Melfi, Mary

History & Criticism

Guernica Editions

Ostensibly, Office Politics is about the modern workplace. It is about the relationship of the powerless to the powerful: the anxieties, tensions, frustrations, the daily psychological fare of those who have to satisfy the whims of bosses, work ever harder for the same pay (or less) while the snarling of the pit bulls of unemployment can be faintly heard through the ornate doors of the company fortress. Still, this is no sociological treatise set to free verse. Nor is it a lighthearted comedy a la Dolly Parton and Lilly Tomlin - although the poet does infuse her sharp commentaries about office queens, workers (and drones) with humor.

Office Politics (Essential Poets Series 88)

Poetry

Taking an unconventional approach to autobiographical writing, this work serves as a double memoir, told in dialogue between a mother and a daughter. The conversation takes place in a medieval town high up in the Italian mountains, as the author, a Canadian writer, draws out her mother's childhood memories of life in southern Italy at the beginning of the 20th century. As they re-create that vanished world, the pair also finds greater understanding of the tumultuous relationships that sometimes exist between immigrant mothers and their children.

Italy Revisited: Conversations with my mother: Conversations with My Mother (82) (Prose series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Foreplay explores the relationship of an economically well-off but emotionally insecure couple who take an off-season vacation on a New Age refuge island, supposedly to improve their sex lives. Nothing is quite as it seems within (or outside) of the self-absorbed protagonists. My Italian Wife is a light-hearted, at times tongue-in-cheek description of the mind-set and preoccupations of second generation Italian immigrants. In the comedy, Rita Romano, a teacher of Italian background, suspects that her much younger sister, Paula, is having an affair with her husband, a world-renowned surgeon.

Foreplay, followed by My Italian Wife (Essential Drama Series)

Dramas & Plays

Attempting to make sense of her life, and change her sad disposition to a happy one, the author of In the Backyard: Relearning the Art of Aging, Dying and Making Love seeks out the help of her in-house therapist/husband, Dr. George Nemeth. The accredited psychologist's answers to the big questions provide a compassionate and humorous backdrop on to how to seize the day and not give up hope when faced with the nasty realities of poor health and unrealized aspirations.

In the Backyard: Relearning the Art of Aging, Dying and Making Love (13) (Memoir and Biography)

Arts & Literature

MiroLand