Fables from Italy and Beyond

Fables from Italy and Beyond (Bordighera Press) brings together two beloved regional figures, poet Grace Cavalieri and music critic and poet Geoffrey Himes. Fables lend themselves beautifully to the repetitive patterns, metrical structures, and stripped-down narrative style of poetry. Section one is loosely inspired by Italo Calvino’s folktales, with some characters added, such as No Nonsense Nancy, and others embellished, such as Olio D’Oliva, whose antics thread throughout the poems.

Section two is a more modern take on folktales drawn from the poets’ combined backgrounds and imaginations. But in both sections, “A third note emerges creating a new chord, / never heard before yet strangely familiar.”

The poems predictably involve kings and queens, merchants and peasants who seek fortunes and outwit evildoers. They also include a fairy who “dived deeper into the poem than anyone had ever gone,” enchanted mirrors that lead to other states of consciousness, and doors that disappear, leaving no exit.

The stories in the second section are often told in first person and concern a twist in time. In “The Magician,” a ragged old man produces a velvet pouch containing a mouse in a fedora and a bonneted canary, who run up and down his arms. At the end, you find yourself in an enchanted but somehow recognizable space when:

Night after night, all we could hear
Were our mothers calling us home
For supper till their voices were
Faint as a whistle.

In “Mirror Mirror on the Wall,” the speaker tumbles from one mirror into another, finding herself transformed at every turn, until finally, in a mirrored ballroom:

I picked one with a glowing, golden frame and I somersaulted into
The mansion where I started. I could smell the mildew and the mouse droppings

The poem “Pretending” is about discovering self-acceptance. It ends:

You took off my mask
and kissed the mask underneath

The steam cleared in the bathroom mirror
And a face appeared.

It was a face I had never seen.
It was mine, the face I’d always wanted.

This delightfully imaginative collection is suitable for all ages. I fully intend to share it with my grandchildren. Above all, though, these poems are restorative, reaching back to a world we recognize on a visceral level but might have almost forgotten. Just what we need on the night table during these troubling times.

Amanda Holmes Duffy is a columnist and poetry editor for the Independent and the voice of “Read Me a Poem,” a podcast of the American Scholar.

© Amanda Holmes Duffy 2025, all rights reserved.