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Event
The Immigrant's Table...a Literary Feast
"It's not a poetry reading," says Mary Lou Sanelli of her upcoming performance of her book "The Immigrant's Table" at the Blue Heron. The event is one of two Vashon Allied Arts weekend events for April's National Poetry Month.
Sanelli moves and acts, which should not surprise, since in addition to being a writer, Sanelli is a trained dancer and performer. And "Table" itself is more than just a book of poems: it's a journey of discovery in which Sanelli offers up a mixture of food recipes (that's where the table comes in) and family photos that have inspired the poems.
The immigrant part appears in the pictures, which show, among others, Sanelli's parents (Maria Antoinette Sinsigalli and Luigi Gabrielle Sanelli), who came to the United States from Italy.
So as a first-generation immigrant, Sanelli, looking back from her present life as a successful journalist/poet/public speaker/dancer living in Port Townsend and Belltown, decides it's time to discover why she left her heritage 3,000 miles behind.
She confesses to having felt out of place on the West Coast. "Why," she asked herself in her early years here, "is everybody so dead, so stoned?"
"As an east-coast transplant," she writes in her book's introduction, "I imitated the laid-back (a description I detest) dress and manners of my new friends. I tried to lower my voice when I spoke. To wave my hands around less."
She began to feel that an essential part of her was missing in her new life, and writing the book put her back in touch with it, and now she shares her newfound sense of what shaped her from stages around the West Coast and even recently in Honolulu.
In a lovely salute, longtime Washington poet Madeline DeFrees says of Sanelli's book, "No fast-food substitutes here, as the poet recreates a culture in which food preparation is a cherished ritual. Sanelli's clear-eyed, yet loving, awareness of family members' foibles, including her own, provides the reader with a menu that nourishes both body and spirit, a gourmet treat for the imagination." And Lori Dillon of West Seattle's ArtsWest Theater, says of Sanelli's performance, "What a truly wonderful experience. Sanelli is inspiring."
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LocationBlue Heron Art Center
19704 Vashon Hwy SW
Vashon Island, WA 98070
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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