La Poesia Italiana Nel Quebec ed. by Tonino Caticchio (review)

498 LETTERS IN CANADA 1983 be interested in Identifications: Ethnicity and the Writer in Canada. This volume presents selected papers which examine the relationship between ethnicity and the work of a number of writers in Canada who create in minority languages or in the two official languages. Included in this collection is a competent 'Introducton to Canadian Yiddish Writers' with special emphasis on the work of Rokhl Korn by Seymour Levitan, an English translator of this major Yiddish poet. Of equal or perhaps greater interest to the Yiddishist and student of Jewish literature are the papers on Canadian-Ukrainian, Hungarian, and Icelandic literature with their substantive discussions of the tension between the wish to remain loyal to a 'foreign' tradition and the need to strike roots in a new land. This comparative material is most rewarding, as are the discussions ofethnicity and identity in literature. An interesting Yiddish memoir of historical value, reflecting the experience of Jewish farm settlement in Western Canada at the turn of the century, has now appeared in English. Marcia Usiskin Basman, a niece of the deceased author M. Usishkin, is the translator of his Oksn un motam (,Oxen and Motors: 1945), published as Uncle Mike's Edenbridge: Memoirs ofaJewish Pioneer Farmer. The memoirist obviously shared both a common experience and its socio-cultural implications with his immigrant readers. However, for the English reader unfamiliar with the Jewish national and social renewal movements of the period, socialist territorialism in particular , much of the historical significance of this very personal account is lost. The value of this translation would have been enhanced by an accompanying piece setting it in the broader context of the ideological ferment of the period. This edition is also somewhat marred by a number of faulty translations and misunderstandings. For example, the rendering of shoykhet (ritual slaughterer) as 'butcher' obscures an interesting bond between the radical Jewish pioneer and his tradition. Although Ken Kirkby's drawings are attractive, they do not have the strength the original photographs would have lent to the book. The appearance of Uncle Mike's Edenbridge should encourage the translation of other valuable Yiddish memoirs which will illuminate our understanding of Canadian Jewry. (EUGENE ORENSTEIN) Tonino Caticcruo, editor. La Poesia Italiana Nel Quebec Centro Italiano Di Cultura Popolare. 140. $5.00 La Poesia Italiana Nel Quebec (La Polsie italienne au Quebec) is a collection of sixty-five poems composed by twenty-five poets of Italian origin who have immigrated to Quebec. In his introduction, Tonino Caticchio explains that this anthology was the outcome of an appeal made through Italian radio stations and newspapers in Montreal for contributions by amateur HUMANITIES 499 poets. Accompanying each poem is an excellent French translation which respects not only the ideas but also the tone and rhythm of the original. Although avariety ofthemes are treated in this anthology, some poems, particularly those written in dialect form, reveal clearly the Italian origin of the poet who has maintained a strong link with his native land. Filippo Salvatore, who contributes five entries, paints a moving portrait of the immigrant. He confesses that it was despair and poverty that compelled him to board a Dc-8 for the land of dreams. Much to his regret, he did not find what he sought but encountered rather hostility, contempt, and an emptiness of soul. He discovered what it means to be an immigrant. ('A Giovanni Caboto 1'). The poet reveals a great affinity for people like himself who are learning to live a new life in a new country. These are his people, dearer to him than his own soul. ('Gente Mia'). In a touching poem, 'E Pura Verita: Filippo Salvatore describes his feelings upon learning of his grandfather's death overseas and thus expresses another painful reality of the immigrant's life: the separation from loved ones. The origins of the poets are not revealed solely by direct references to their homeland. Certain poems betray the influence of an upbringing in a predominantly Catholic country. Whether the poem describes the Christ who walked in the garden of olives ('Senza Titolo: Luigi Di Vito), or the suffering Christ carrying his cross ('Alba: Ermanno La Riccia), or the Supreme Being...