Characters

I was thinking the other day of how to create characters in a piece of writing. How to encapsulate a complex persona into a snapshot for the purposes of a story. It's hard and it often means resorting to stereotypes, which is something I cringe at. For me, more often then not, it means expereimenting until I find the right details. Only with those telling details does the picture I paint begin to ring true.

So I began to revisit some of the "character" poems, or portraits, I've written. One jumped out at me. I had almost forgotten my first Italian teacher. A character if I've ever met one.

Gustavo Foscarini

L'uomo basso e forte –
You are as short and stocky
as a Pyrenees mountain pony.

Your unruly grey beard is
a shaggy carpet that explodes off your face
like a snake out of a can,
hiding two ears folded open like
advent-calendar doors.

A sense of humor to match
your vivacious eyebrows,
which periodically bounce up and
down like a child playing peek-a-boo.

You remind me of Nino twenty years from now,
hands that leap and dance
to the rhythm of your trombone tones.

The classic Italian gentleman --
polite, nosy, charming,
relaxed.
I wonder why you left Italia,
and if you have any grandchildren.

I think you were born in the South,
where enjoyment and good wine
are prima di tutto
and passione sizzles in the blood like oil
in an August frying pan,
where there is no word for lust, only l'amore.

One day I'll ask you these things,
if you know of La Madonna del Castello,
the legends and frescos beneath her salty floor,
if the smell of aglio and basilico
are a wooden spoon that stirs memories,
and if you are ever tempted to go back
to the language where "stress" doesn't translate.