Bronx Rhapsody

The words of Bronx Rhapsody move to the beat of Maria Meli’s heart and the wrenching of her core. In her poems, one senses her relief and ecstasy for having been able to let go. This second-generation Sicilian American takes us on a long journey, one that sings of her beginnings within the household of her immigrant family, enclosed by its traditions in its bucolic Bronx setting, and poignantly portrays her coming of age and her pilgrimage to adulthood. The trajectory embraces a luscious eight-decade lifespan from the time she was born in the years before World War II until the present.

But this volume of poetry is by no means a book of praise poems crafted after the dinner parties and rituals of warm Sicilian American families. Maria Meli allows us to bear witness to the challenges imposed upon her becoming a woman, all set against a poetic tapestry woven by a narrative of abuses and betrayals that include the Sturm und Drang of falling in and out of love and the joy only children can bring forth in the Boogie Down against the ever-changing backdrop of the City that Never Sleeps.

María Meli, just like her predecessors Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Charles Bukowski, is a poet who is not afraid of exposing, denouncing, or uplifting humankind. She’s both raw and sublime. In her work, Meli questions assimilation against authenticity and condemns the hypocrisy of American politics and the proliferation of inequality, particularly amongst people of color, women, and the poor. Despite some scathingly ugly portrayals, her words, on the whole, reflect the poet's hope for all of us to rise above violence, erasure, poverty, and prejudice.

With such a spirit of optimism, Maria Meli also believes that we owe it to ourselves to feel, to name our own demons and dance with them because, in her view, it is precisely through the process of acceptance and forgiveness that starts within the self and radiates from us to our loved ones that we are genuinely able to open our hearts and embrace kindness and generosity as our daily mantra. Indeed, for Maria, achieving such a level of consciousness in our interactions with others can generate a kind of communal rebirth capable of restoring the dignity of all human life.

Editorial Review of Maria Meli's Bronx Rhapsody in Dancing With Muses

Maria Meli earned a BS in Therapeutic Recreation at Lehman College and an MSW at Hunter College School of Social Work. She is an interdisciplinary artist who has worked extensively with intergenerational groups in both creative and therapeutic settings. Her poetry and essays have been featured in several anthologies such as The Bronx Memoir Project Vol. 1 and The Bronx Memoir Project Vol. 2, and some have been performed in diverse venues in the U.S. Meli's insights into the human psyche are informed by her work as a performance artist, painter, clinician, Yoga teacher, single parent, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and housewife.

Orlando Ferrand is an award-winning poet, writer, literary translator, editor, and digital designer. A member of PEN America and The Authors Guild, he's the author of the full-length poetry collections Citywalker, La Otra Isla, and Star Witness, as well as the memoir Apologia: Cuban Childhood in My Backpack. Ferrand is a contributing writer and artist to PEN America: A Journal for Writers and Readers, the Visual AIDS Blog, POZ magazine, Linden Lane Magazine & Press, The Adroit Journal and La Peregrina Magazine. His featured TED talk and recital, "Underneath the Accent of My Skin," was released in 2017. Ferrand has performed at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, The New York Poetry Festival and The Poets Network & Exchange, Inc. The multidisciplinary artist has also been showcased at "La Pluma y La Tinta," "Jasper Collective Visitations," "Sunday Salon," and "Miss Manhattan" reading series. He is currently working on his first collection of short stories, another memoir, and his fourth full-length book of poetry.

Dr. Robert F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of ESL and French at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College (CUNY) and former Associate Lecturer of ESL at Columbia University's American Language Program, has always insisted throughout his career as a teacher and writer that his role as an educator is to go beyond the confines of the subject matter itself in order to arrive at a more "concrete" goal, that of teaching people to have compassion for one another. Indeed, this desire to get us all to reflect on how to improve the human condition has been the driving force behind Dr. Cohen´s research and writing. Because of his reputation in his field, he has been invited to present at national and international conferences and has had articles published in professional journals. For many years, he was on the editorial board of Touchstone, the Hostos journal, and he has also edited works of fiction and non-fiction. In addition, with his co-author, Dr. Cohen has thus far written ten books: Longman Academic Reading Series. Reading Skills for College. Levels 3 and 4 (Pearson Education, 2014), four editions of North Star. Focus on Reading and Writing, Advanced (Pearson Education, 1998, 2004, 2009, 2015), and the High Beginner, Low Intermediate, and Intermediate editions of Reason to Write. Strategies for Success in Academic Writing (Oxford University Press, 2006, 2001, 2003, respectively). He and his co-author are also the Series Editors of an Advanced edition of Reason to Write (Oxford University Press, 2006). Worldwide recognition of Dr. Cohen´s ESL textbooks has afforded him the rewarding opportunity to consult at universities abroad. He has shared the position of consulting editor with a colleague on two multilevel textbook series. Beyond the Boundaries. English in an Academic Environment, Books 1- 6 (Sabanci University Press, 2003) and Journeys: Academic English for the Gulf. Books 1 - 3 (Zayed University Press, 2006) reflect their contributions to two wonderful projects, the first with the Foundations Development Program, at Sabanci University, in Istanbul, Turkey, and the second with the English Language Center, at Zayed University, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. As a result of their guidance, both institutions can now boast programs that are on the cutting edge of English language pedagogy. Dr. Cohen, who believes that through his publications he has become a more enlightened and creative contributor to his profession, taught at Columbia University for 12 years, from summer 1988 until summer 2000, and worked at Hostos Community College for 17 years, starting in fall 2000 and retiring in fall 2017. At Columbia University, he was the Freshman Composition Coordinator for ESL students for a two-year period. At Hostos Community College, he was Chair of the Department of Language and Cognition for seven years (2005-2012), the founder and director of the Hostos Success Academy for six years (2006-2012), and the founder and director of the Hostos Book-of-the-Semester Project for nine years (2006 -2015). Dr. Cohen received his academic degrees from Queens College (CUNY) in 1966 (B.A. magna cum laude in French, with election into Phi Beta Kappa), from Columbia University in 1968 (M.A. in French and Romance Philology), and from Harvard University in 1975 (Ph.D. in French). He remains to this day a teacher, writer, editor, translator, and an intercultural communications facilitator. For him, the creative life - honoring it and living it to the fullest - is where all his hopes and dreams are nurtured.