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Cristina Di Maio

Cristina Di Maio holds a PhD in Linguistic, Philological, and Literary Studies from the University of Macerata (Italy). She has been the recipient of several fellowships and competitive awards, and has published essays on Grace Paley, Toni Cade Bambara, Angela Carter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Her PhD dissertation focuses on the narrative, sociopolitical and aesthetic function of games and play in Toni Cade Bambara, Grace Paley and Rita Ciresi’s short fiction. Her academic interests include Play Theory, Modern and Contemporary American Literature, Feminist Theory, Italian American Literature, and Cultural Studies. E-mail: dimaiocristina@gmail.com

Book Review: Diane Di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions by David Stephen Calonne

Poets have often figured as the liaison between mystic items and the vast audience to whom the inner meaning of such items was mysterious or unknown. In this sense, poets act as prophets, translators of symbols or, more metaphorically, bridges. It is precisely the idea of the poet as a bridge which David Stephen emphasises in Diane di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions. In this 2019 volume, the legendary figure of the late di Prima is portrayed in turn as a bridge between cultures, key literary and intellectual movements, and ethnicities.