1What am I to expect from a book of poems entitled American Rondeau, with a cover that does not flaunt any national symbols and dispenses with obvious circular shapes? The front cover resembles hand-made paper, drawing attention to its texture and the inevitable negotiations between intention and chance. Miniscule archeological tools and excavations are grouped exactly in the spot on the cover where my hand touches the book to open it. But where am I? I keep asking myself as I move from one page to the next, from one poem to another, stopping to consider the message and the manner of conveying it. One hint comes from the dedication in Italian “alla memoria di mio nonno, Alberico Di Biase, musicista e poeta.” The grandson is likewise a musician and a poet, and the form of rondeau unites the dual, interlocked professions of both. I am in a space that belongs to both music and literature.

2The chapbook of twenty-five poems—which is no doubt a significant number—begins and ends with rondeaux: the “Roman” first and the “American” last. The poet and musician takes us from ancient Rome to America, and back to America’s own “dream-time” (33). “That old stone space has lost” is the line repeated in the first poem, and the personal, diffident “I nearly overlooked”, in the last. The reader has a sense, though, that the poet and musician overlooks nothing. Each of the poems is wrought with the kind of precision and discipline that leaves the reader in awe of the art that captures significant moments in the lives both real and imagined, or real and imagined at the same time. There are scenes of tenderness, as in “The Cellist in Prague” or “Elegy to a Cyclist,” but play-acting and the horror of ambiguities in which players are caught up is never far away. As I move from one poem to another, halting and looking back, I realize that I am locked in an old haunted house, haunted by named (literary) and nameless (personal) ghosts, both types equally scary. “They were his daughter’s bones” (3) in the poem “Skeletons” sounds dreary until the following line intimates the daughter’s medical studies. “A cup of tea” made of “hot tears” in the poem “To Warm my Bones” is likewise an insecure consolation. The shadow of death is always present, also (or especially) in nature poems, like “The Forest Cabin,” “The Sound of Violets by Centennial Bridge,” or “The Way to the Lake.” These poems make me think of Philip Freneau.

3The story of (Italian) immigrants: Alessandro in “Skeletons,” Joe in “This Task and That,” and the unnamed couple in “His Own Wine” show the pain and the perseverance of average people who deserve to share the narrative space with protagonists of Shakespeare’s plays. This thin volume is more densely populated than many novels, and the line between real and imagined characters is thin, though the values and principles people—whether real or imagined—stand for (or obviously defy) are never relativized. The scope is both personal and panoramic.

4In the haunted house that Carmine Di Biase’s poems open up for me, there is a special place for Shakespeare, with whom—as I imagine—the poet and musician of today plays cards. It is the measure of Di Biase’s poetical skill to be visibly on an equal footing with the Bard of Avon. The dramatic monologues in “Iago’s Dream,” “Lavinia’s Lament,” “A Deed without a Name,” and the story of “Prospero’s Staff” show the relevance of Shakespeare today and Di Biase’s ability to read him in a way that turns the poet of old into our contemporary. Around the time of the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing, some AI experts came up with imitations of his sonnets. I took the test and immediately saw the difference between the genuine lines and the fake ones, but now reading Di Biase’s poems, I think that the Bard of Avon would be pleased—as a ghost—to have some of these poems attributed to him.

5Shakespeare is not the only poet of major stature to come alive in Di Biase’s book. W.H. Auden, W.B. Yeats, and C.P. Cavafy are mentioned by name. The Master (Henry James) puts in an appearance with his famous euphemism for death, capitalized as “the Distinguished Thing” (14) in the poem “Forewarnings.” As a gloomy counterpoint to these voices, the ghosts of mania, madness, and delusion become real in the poem “Ballad of the German Cannibal,” which tells the true story of a perverse murderer and his willing victim in a disturbingly jolly manner, as ballads often do. The poem “Elegy to an Iceberg” shows ecological disasters that also deserve the name of a crime and the fitting punishment (21). “The Next Election” is topical and political in a straightforward way, referring specifically to the American presidential election and the Corona pandemic. Like Shakespeare and Yeats, who is invoked in this poem, Di Biase has political views and proves that poetry is a space of many debates, including politics. The point, however, is that his straightforward opinion is expressed in a way that is also aesthetically most gratifying. Like metaphysical poets, Di Biase is a master of conceit and the way he hammers metaphors to suit the aims of his art is worthy of John Donne, and of Edward Taylor on the other side of the Atlantic.

6I have read this book for the pleasure of my own enlightenment, but I can imagine how it could be put to work in a classroom. One of Carmine Di Biase’s many achievements rests on his ability to show that age-old literary masters (say, Ovid) and traditional forms, such as the ballad, the elegy, the pantoum, the rondeau, the sonnet, the sestina, and the villanelle, alongside free verse, which is not at all free in the vulgar sense, may still come alive and convey meanings that are crucial today. Our culture gives a shorthand name of Gothic to the atmosphere we find in many of these poems. They make evident that there are reasons in our lives and in our world to be scared out of our wits. The strict poetic and musical discipline of these poems cuts both ways: increasing the horror and gesturing toward human agency that also has the power to redeem.

7The final poem of the chapbook, first published in 2019, has a transmedial life as a short film uploaded to YouTube in 2021. Directed by James Woodward, narrated by Carmine Di Biase, and with music by Woodward, this version opens “American Rondeau,” and actually the whole collection of poems, to a new interpretation of the American dream that includes prehistoric dream-time and the dream-time in movies.