Thursday, February 19, 2015

THE IMPORTANCE OF A BLIZZARD

by Michael Carosone


Exeter, NH, February 16, 2015. Photo by Emmaline Kim.

 
It takes a blizzard to stop time

to stop the hamsters from turning the wheels
            to stop the mice from running in the mazes
                        to stop the rat race

to make people slow down

and breathe
             and appreciate
                        and think

to make people realize

that they are not hamsters
            not mice
                        not rats


Michael Carosone is a writer, educator, activist, and native New Yorker from Kings Bay/Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. With his partner, Joseph LoGiudice, he wrote and edited the book, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (Bordighera Press, May 2013), a collection of 15 personal essays on the lives of Gay Italian American men. His poems and essays have been published in a variety of books and journals. He writes on personal, political, and social topics and issues, including marginalized peoples and literatures, especially Italian Americans and people of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) community. He is pursuing his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree in English Education at Teachers College of Columbia University, and his dissertation will focus on incorporating marginalized literatures and writers—Queer and Italian American—into the English classroom, in grades K-12 and at the college level. He lives in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, with his partner, Joseph LoGiudice.