Press
Talking to Strangers: A Snapshot of Life in Chianti – The Florentine, November 2014
Poet in Translation, Cristina Rizzuto – La Macina di San Cresci, August 2014
A Passion for Words – PanoramItalia, August 2014
Fantasia Improvvisata – Wattpad, October 2013
Shortlisted for the CBC Canada Writes competition – CBC, February 2013
Winners of the 15th Annual Mattia International Poetry Competition – January 2013
City of Vaughan Honors Outstanding Artists at RAVE Awards – November 2012
FILM: “Sleepwalker’s Girl” directed by Sean Dunnigan & Henry Mak, August 2012
Vaughan writer on way to literary success – The Vaughan Citizen, June 2012
Vaughan author and literary advocate – York Region Arts Council, June 2012
Alumni in the news – University of Toronto, June 2012
Indie-Lit Night at Starlight – What To Do Waterloo, May 2012
The Music Makers Pinterest Page – Pinterest, May 2012
On Poetry, With Cristina Rizzuto – Open Book Toronto, April 2012
Interview – Blaurock Press, April 2012
The Sad Truth About the Gingerbread Latte – Dragnet Magazine, page 13, January 2012
Praise for The Music Makers:
“I enjoyed reading The Music Makers. I found the poems to be thought-provoking, well-textured, and passionate. I particularly liked ‘The sweet life’ – my favourite movie. I always considered that last scene beautiful and pathetic.”
– Robert Marrone, Writer
“At last I received The Music Makers. I have read it three or four times through, and the poems I’ve found especially sensual have received more readings. ‘A Leaf,’ has that great last line, ”How will I save myself from extinction?” as well as quiet, clear images of Fall. In ‘The willow tree’ I love the lines: ”I want to be swallowed by the moment,/and find it later in my dreams”, and “If I could choose, I would die beneath a willow tree…”, and “tendrils wrapped around me in/this hourglass,/this moment of November.” I keep being drawn back to ‘The sweet life’: ”He waved but never came.” There are others, but overall these are the kind of poems I respect: urban, stripped of useless decoration, heard edged when needed, yet quietly perceptive and evoking. I’ve often found such strong poems rare in first/early books by younger writers. The work is worldly, true, yet not cynical. The use of language, word choices, line and sentence management, serves to evoke meaning while not obscuring meaning. I was quite taken by the use of the four cantos that inform and evoke the poems within them, but season the overall thrust of the book. I hope it is a big success.”
– Michael Carrino, Poet
“Short lyrics and sketches of emergence, whose signatures are a startling precocity of taste, judgment and reticence. The poems are organized in four sections under headings of musical direction, here indicating narrative markings and precise emotional and intellectual registers: Da Capo, from the head; Lontano, from a distance; Adagio, at ease; Cadence, a falling. These are urban poems, poems of streetscapes and street people, of movement and light, of the anonymous and disinterested gaze, reminiscent of Baudelaire, Eliot, St Vincent Millay. A first collection of surprising strength and authority.”
– S.K. Johannesen, Author