Flying Deeper into the Century

Nora Drutz was a Toronto-based freelance writer.

This is a disappointing book in many respects. In Di Cicco’s previous works, he has at times managed to overcome his predilection for the overly contrived metaphor and to write of the ordinary things of life — love, family, friends — in a lyrical way that, with its sincerity and compassion, borders on brilliance. Not so here. In this, his tenth collection of verse, he has focused on one topic, the moral decay of the latter half of the twentieth century, and in an almost collage-like sequence of surrealistic images, lambasts us with that for 94 pages. In a bitter and satirical vein, he laments the death of the ‘60s; the sell-out of the children of the ‘60s by their guilty retreat into the silent majority. He takes pot shots at Al Haig, the PTL Club, and other twentieth century institutions, and he fears the imminence of a global holocaust. “Al’s having lunch with Nostradamus; / they are discussing the finer points / of Armageddon.” In “Where Were You the Day John Lennon Died?” he wistfully envisions the children of the ‘60s coming forth to do their duty. “Where are the children of the sixties? / They have come out in droves ... Now / they are marching on Washington, putting / up road blocks against Ronald Reagan; / ... millions / of middle-aged angry marchers, the silent / majority, organizing rallies in Vancouver, / Chicago, New York ... now they are climbing into boats and sailing towards / Russia ... burning KGB agents at the stake.” But this is just a wish. It is powerful stuff, but after a few pages of this bombast, the reader becomes overwhelmed. Toward the end of the book, Di Cicco does an abrupt about-face and his anger changes to optimism. He realizes the necessity of love as the only redeeming force in mankind and proclaims his love of the world, friends, and inanimate objects. The few really good poems in this collection are in this last part; the best being “Sleeping in Heaven,” where he attains the lyric beauty seen in previous works.

Nevertheless, in spite of my personal preferences, this is a fast-paced dynamic work, albeit a cluttered one; it will, I think, with its timeliness, appeal to the university set and like-minded humanitarians.