The Stone Mason’s Notebook (2016)
The Stone Mason’s Notebook is both a continuation and an expansion of Militano’s poetic awareness and voice. It is a restless voice that seeks to reveal, celebrate, and capture a complex consciousness rooted in personal history, Winnipeg, Calabria, classical myth and the flux and power of art, ‘its inarticulate purity.’ He is a poet who finds points on the spirit’s compass whether it be the erotic, loss, irreverence, or the quotidian; it is all here.
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“Lyrical, passionate, reflective, ironic, and wise, Militano is a “mason” of the intersections of time and eternity, where the bricks of experience are always falling in “inarticulate purity.” For him, “Truth,” as he imagines Modigliani might have put it, “is just another mask, flesh and light [his] true addictions”; romantic relationships are “unfinished temples.” We read The Stone Mason’s Notebook and witness a marvelously unique individual poetic awareness with origins in Calabria and a history in Winnipeg as it is framed and intensified by an engagement with classical myth, the intricacies of art, and a fully lived life. The collection is a memorable one, a triumph.”
“Militano’s poems embody various themes and blend occurrences from his own life with scenes from the lives of artists from the past, thus relating current events to historical ones, and painting an artistic milieu of congeniality and conviviality, where, as seen in “La Rotonde,” the artists could introduce, showcase, and nurture each other’s art—not unlike Militano’s own artistic ambiance enriched by the network of writers, artists, and art lovers from all walks of life.”
“Militano’s poems are marvellous letters to the reader, wide-ranging, intimate, and written inside myths, Calabrian fairy-tales, the snowy streets and stockyards of Winnipeg.”