{"id":10795,"date":"2025-03-19T04:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T04:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=10795"},"modified":"2025-04-21T16:01:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:01:50","slug":"dear-dante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/dear-dante\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Dante"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Pilgrim\u2019s Friend<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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O\u2019Donnell\u2019s poetic missives to Dante on his way through the afterlife offer her readers, in turn, a companion for the journey of the Divine Comedy<\/em>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Mia Schilling Grogan<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In her Introduction to Dear Dante, <\/em>Angela Alaimo O\u2019Donnell asserts that her new book began as a \u201cspecies of accompaniment\u201d when she decided to re-read the Divine Comedy<\/em> in anticipation of its 700th anniversary and found herself responding to Dante, canto by canto, with her own poems. And a jacket blurb by the Fordham University professor and dantista<\/em> Susanna Barsella similarly describes the book as a sort of pilgrimage that O\u2019Donnell makes with Dante, inviting her readers to join the two poets en route<\/em>.<\/p>

Indeed, the experience of accompaniment belongs not only to the contemporary poet, deeply engaging her \u201cmaster,\u201d but to all who read the collection. Turning the pages, we too, are re-visiting Inferno, Purgatorio<\/em>, and Paradiso<\/em>, tagging along, listening to O\u2019Donnell, a woman of our own times, as she both acknowledges Dante\u2019s genius, but also interrogates the worldview that formed him and which is sometimes difficult to embrace. This is a collection best read straight through from beginning to end, perhaps, as I did, pausing between the realms to reflect and regroup before moving ahead. Read sequentially, as one would read the Divine Comedy<\/em> itself, we feel the sweep of Dante pilgrim\u2019s own journey, but also the growing intimacy and affection that O\u2019Donnell clearly feels for \u201cil miglior fabbro.\u201d<\/p>

After a single sonnet Prologue, O\u2019Donnell, a master sonneteer, allows a different form to dominate the \u201cInferno\u201d section of her book: the terza rima <\/em>form of the Divine Comedy <\/em>itself.\u00a0 There are sonnets here, as well, but as she begins her journey of response to Dante, the poet\u2019s use of terza rima<\/em> feels fresh and appropriately \u201copen-ended.\u201d The sonnet form most often creates a sense of closure, but the terza rima <\/em>poems here are \u201cquesting,\u201d full of forward movement, and questioning. Like any of us who have \u201cjourneyed half of our life\u2019s way\u201d (or more), O\u2019Donnell knows she, like Dante, must face \u201cplaces that the small soul dreads, \/ the world of reckoning \/ with the living and the dead,\u201d and that we\u2019ll all \u201chave to go through Hell\u201d to do so (\u201cThe Journey\u201d). It’s a wry acknowledgment that these journeying poems necessarily ask us to encounter scenes and ideas we\u2019d rather not face.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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These journeying poems necessarily ask us to encounter scenes and ideas we\u2019d rather not face.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In the \u201cPurgatorio\u201d section the sonnet gains greater prominence, perhaps because the poet here feels called to offer some challenges to Dante\u2019s world view, and the definitiveness of the sonnet helps to make her points. Earlier, in \u201cInferno,\u201d O\u2019Donnell relied on a mono-rhyme sonnet to question the placement of suicides in hell: \u201cNo place \/ for mercy in their Maker\u2019s mind\u2026\u201d. So here in purgatory, the poet questions the \u201cpenance that most haunts \/ me\u201d: the torture of the gluttons who waste away, famished in sight of branches heavy with fruit. The speaker in \u201cDante among the Gluttons\u201d observes: \u201cContrapasso<\/em> proves to be the art \/ of cruelty, at times, instead of justice.\u201d O\u2019Donnell is interrogating medieval theology in poems such as these; she also relies on a mirror sonnet to suggest that surely Christ knew purgatory, though Dante does not place him there (\u201cChrist in Purgatory\u201d). Traveling canto by canto in a space between Dante and her own readers, O\u2019Donnell asks Dante the questions we might raise, and she \u201ctranslates\u201d back to us Dante\u2019s own pain, that for instance Virgil must remain in Limbo: \u201cIt seems cruel, given that his sin \/ is a mild one\u2026.He just couldn\u2019t see \/ that God was God\u2026\u201d (\u201cVirgil in Limbo\u201d).<\/p>

The final sonnet in the \u201cParadiso\u201d section recalls that in Canto XXXIII of Paradiso<\/em>, Dante loses his power of speech at the beatific vision. But for O\u2019Donnell herself, it seems that coming this far on the journey with Dante has strengthened her own voice: this final section contains some of the most beautiful poems in the collection, including \u201cDante the Master Chef\u201d and \u201cDante among the Blessed Souls.\u201d Here we encounter with O\u2019Donnell the vision to comfort those\u2014surely all of us\u2014who have lost a loved one, the feast of heaven:<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Food for the soul and food for the heart.
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The table is set\u2014he gathers us in.
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 He promises more, an endless repast.\u00a0
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (\u201cDante the Master Chef\u201d)<\/p>

\u00a0By this point, the Dante O\u2019Donnell addresses is also the \u201cPilgrim Friend,\u201d \u201cconversant with stars, \/ companion of blessed saints and souls\u201d who has brought us the story we \u201cread and reread\u201d because it \u201cnever gets old\u201d (\u201cDante loses Beatrice\u201d). Indeed! In two light-hearted sonnet Epilogues, O\u2019Donnell playfully riffs on her own presumption in writing poems in response to Dante\u2019s masterpiece\u2014a feeling she acknowledged in her Introduction, but as she told us there, she chose to ignore for the chance to gain intimacy with Dante through this project. The gamble pays off for her and for her readers. We know very well that \u201cA Dante doesn\u2019t happen twice\u201d (\u201cDante\u2019s Bargain\u201d), but we can feel grateful to O\u2019Donnell for a book that in poem after poem sends us turning back to his great poem again and again\u2014to read and re-read now also accompanied by another \u201cpilgrim friend,\u201d this perceptive and sympathetic poet herself.\u00a0<\/p>

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Mia Schilling Grogan<\/strong> is Associate Professor of English at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Grogan is a medievalist working in the areas of hagiography and women\u2019s spiritual writing; she is also a poet whose poems have appeared in many journals, most recently The Christian Century, Presence, <\/em>and Dappled Things. <\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dear Dante: Poems<\/strong> was published by Paraclete Press on April 9, 2024. You can purchase a copy from the publisher\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O\u2019Donnell\u2019s poetic missives to Dante on his way through the afterlife offer her readers, in turn, a companion for the journey of the Divine Comedy. 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