My Memoir of a Great Poet
by Marguerite Zappa (class of 1970)
Poet, Translator, Educator, Humanist, Novelist, Essayist, New York State Poet Laureate Emeritus: Professor Joseph Tusiani was all of these, and more.
As a poet who created sublimity in five languages: Italian, English, Latin, Spanish, and in the Gargano dialect, his words are profound and boundless. His musicality and phrases of rhythmic patterns transport readers from the written page to a spiritual realm. Through his extensive poetry volumes, he leaves a rich legacy for future generations of students, educators, and researchers.
I first met Professor Tusiani as a student and music major at Lehman College. My passion for music, languages, and my Italian ethnicity led me to his class one afternoon, to hear this remarkable “thespian” deliver a lecture on Dante’s “Paradiso” from La Divina Commedia. This was the first of several lectures I attended. I say thespian, as there was not one sound in the room, as if to give reverence to the unfolding performance. The silence was deafening and all that could be heard was this majestic voice commanding one’s attention. When class ended, I recall remaining in my seat completely mesmerized by what I had just experienced. I knew I had met an extraordinary man, an artistic genius. What I did not know was how he would impact my life and that we would reunite forty years later.
Tusiani interpreta Tusiani, a magnificent CD of 34 of Professor Tusiani’s poems in Italian, English, Latin, and Gargano recorded by him, was the catalyst that brought about this reunion. Determined to find this CD, but not having succeeded in my attempts to do so, I sent the professor a note, but first introduced myself as the student who had been thoroughly enraptured and fascinated by his Dante lectures years earlier. To my complete amazement, I received an extraordinary letter back within the same week, acknowledging that he well-remembered me and those Dante classes and discussions. So began a union of mind, heart and spirit which endured not only until his passing on April 11, 2020, but continues to this day.
Joseph spent his entire life writing, creating, translating, and imparting his vast knowledge to countless students. He always remained the perennial scholar himself, as manifest in the notes and comments made in his personal library of books (literature, poetry, music, politics, history, mythology) held by Lehman College’s Leonard Lief Library. His unabridged Latin-French Poetry Dictionary, included in the collection and which he read from cover to cover, has his thoughts and notations throughout, indicative of his passion for words, their meaning and source.
After his Lehman career and many more years had passed, poetry and writing continued to be Professor Tusiani’s lifeline, reflecting his eclectic creativity, and catapulting him to a period of remarkable productivity.
My collaboration with Professor Tusiani was indeed singular, professionally, and personally. It included conversations about the professor’s literary career and our mutual love of music – particularly opera, in which we shared many MET performances in each other’s company. He would prepare sumptuous meals, for he was an excellent cook. Being the consummate professor, he always wrote and printed the menu from the antipasto to the dessert, detailing what was being served. Of course, there was his poetry – its melodic phraseology, metrical patterns, and ethereal essence through which profound statements were made, lessons taught, and dreams realized. An example follows:
“…Here reborn, and sing
To the air of the mountain and the plain:
“O mystery! O glory! I was born
Where to be born is beauty and is love.”
From “The Return”
Professor Tusiani’s literary workday began with poems he’d written in the early hours of the morning, which he then emailed to me. I would re-format each one in the designated poetic structure and email them back to him for review. Our daily morning discussions of the works occurred at 5:00 a.m. religiously. We completed this exchange before I left for work and in the evening, our conversations resumed for desired adjustments to the poems submitted that morning. To begin and end each day in this scholarly aura was exhilarating and surreal, enhancing the rituals of everyday life, through the ambience created.
Joseph’s process was unique, for even in a casual conversation, I could sense when a new poem was brewing. It could germinate from a simple word or gesture and would evolve, blossoming into a masterful creation. Weekly visits added to this intensely creative ritual which fed my curiosity and nurtured my desire to learn more. I brought hard copies to him for his final approval and then documented them in a special computer folder I created. This extraordinary collection of poetry in multiple languages reached an astounding 2,200 works, spanning a period from 2014-2020. During this time, he suffered a stroke (2014) and underwent cancer surgery (2018). Yet, despite these major hurdles, he never stopped writing and continued to do so, even from his hospital bed, without ever interrupting our work routine. A testament to that is a poem he wrote the day after his surgery, dedicated to his physicians, titled “V For Victory.” His artistry provided a sure remedy to heal, which he did, vigorously pursuing his poetic path.
Ironically, Joseph always referred to poetry as the “Cinderella of the arts.” He believed that people immediately react to music – sounds, which through chordal progressions create a gamut of emotions. I assured him that his poetry embodied music and was evinced through his orchestration of words and their placement, comparable to the structure of a symphony. Music emerged through his infinite ability to improvise on his Hammond organ, where notes would come to him as did words. As a pianist, I was encouraged to play. Being rather nervous and never having played the organ before, I practiced some of my favorite Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and Fauré pieces and performed for him one afternoon and on several occasions afterward. His prowess on the mandolin, which he learned as a young boy was inspiring, and left me in amazement. Yet, his insatiable thirst for writing was forever present in everything he did.
The Works Themselves:
Briefly, the following illustrates much of his nearly countless accomplishments. Readers will encounter a great deal, exploring and immersing themselves in the Professor Joseph Tusiani Collection. To navigate through it is to experience a journey through works of prose and poetry via different languages. These works are stylistically diverse, pedagogically brilliant, and emotionally riveting. From them, one emerges intellectually stimulated and inspired.
From Rind and All (1962), Professor Tusiani’s first collection of English Poetry, selections, along with three poems not from the book, were recorded by him for the Library of Congress at the request of President John F. Kennedy. The Fifth Season followed in 1964, and Gente Mia and other Poems was published in 1978.
His Latin productivity is equally prolific, citing such works as Melos Cordis, Odi Sacre, Rosa Rosarum, In Exilio Rerum, Nobis Caelum and more, spanning decades.
La Gloria del Momento showcases a collection of the professor’s Spanish poetry, works composed from 1962-1990.
As a world-renowned translator, Professor Tusiani’s masterful translations of major Italian literary classics are well-known: The three-volume anthology, Italian Poets of the Renaissance, The Age of Dante and From Marino to Marinetti, consists of 581 works of 113 Italian poets translated into English verse; The Complete Poems of Michelangelo; Dante’s Lyric Poems; Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered and Creation of the World; Lust and Liberty: The Poems of Machiavelli; Giovanni Boccaccio’s Nymphs of Fiesole; Leopardi’s Canti; and, Luigi Pulci’s Morgante, where the professor was the only literary scholar to have ever translated this massive epic poem of 28 Cantos. Consider: Lord Byron attempted to do so but gave up after the 1st canto. These cite merely a few of Professor Tusiani’s vast body of work in this capacity.
The art of prose is eloquently manifested in his novel Envoy from Heaven published in 1965 and in his three-volume autobiographical trilogy, La Parola Difficile, La Parola Nuova, and La Parola Antica.
An epistolary interview between Dr. Joseph Tusiani and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is documented in The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vol. 5, (1959-1960).
Accolades, awards, and tributes are numerous and noteworthy. Professor Tusiani was the first American to be the recipient of the prestigious Greenwood Prize (1956) from the Poetry Society of England for his work, “The Return.” He was Director of the Catholic Poetry Society of America and served as Vice President of the Poetry Society of America from 1958-1968. In 1986, The American Association of Teachers of Italian nominated him as the first recipient of the AATI Distinguished Service Award. In 2016, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo named Professor Joseph Tusiani as the New York State Poet Laureate Emeritus.
There are no more perfect words to better comprehend the nucleus of the Professor Joseph Tusiani Collection than those expressed by the professor himself when he accepted the Distinguished Accomplishment Award in Literature at the Herbert H. Lehman College Foundation’s Leadership Awards Dinner in 2015:
“Education comes from ‘ēdūcere,’ to bring out, out from something. Something must be brought out. We all enjoy life physically. We enjoy sunshine. We enjoy a beautiful day, but education enriches life. You go beyond enjoying it. You enrich your life by adding what was there in you and somebody brought out and so, education makes your soul gentle, purer, more genuine.”
I am honored and privileged to have curated the Professor Joseph Tusiani Collection. Certainly, these works, and especially the man himself, have enriched my life beyond words. I wish for all readers and audiences a similar inspiration.
