Storyteller of the Week

Joan Leotta

 

 

Joan Leotta and her son, Joey

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She writes about food, family, nature, and strong women. She is a poet, novelist, short story writer and a story performer who goes on stage and puts on a one-person show acting out all the characters in folk tales or personal stories. She has performed up and down the East Coast, in Italy and the UK, putting on one-woman shows at the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian and other museums, schools, libraries, festivals and for groups ranging from preschool to seniors.

 After a very happy childhood in Pittsburgh seeing life through the lens of her extended Italian American family, she lived in the Washington DC Metro area where she met her husband Joe and became mother to Jennie and Joey and began her freelance writing and story performance careers. In 2004, Joan and Joe moved to Calabash, NC where she has been able to indulge her love of collecting seashells.

 She has published poetry and fiction in Synkroniciti, Ekphrastic Review, Pinesong, The Sun, Brass Bell, Verse Visual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Ovunquesiamo, Verse Virtual, Poetry in Plain Sight, Red Eft, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Yellow Mama, Crimeucopia, Mystery Tribune and others. She’s a 2021 Pushcart nominee, received Best of Micro Fiction, 2021 (Haunted Waters), nominee for Best of the Net, 2023, and 2022 runner up in Frost Foundation Poetry Competition.

 She is the author of two chapbooks, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon (Finishing Line Press 2017) and Feathers on Stone, (Main Street Rag 2022). She has written four historical fiction novels, four children’s books, and short story collection, which are out of print, but she does have a few copies to sell. Joan is a member of the North Carolina Poetry Society (where she gave a talk on Story in Poetry in 2022), a member and area representative for North Carolina Writers Network and on the stage side of her work, member of, and as the coastal area representative for NC’s Tar Heel Tellers and coordinates Poetry Workshops/Readings online through her Brunswick County’s Arts Council.

 

Comments by Editor Sharon Waller Knutson

 

Joan Leotta came to mind when I selected the name, Storyteller Poetry Journal because she is the ultimate storyteller. Her poetry about family also makes her the perfect poet for Mother’s Day weekend.

 “Story is at the heart of everything I write,” Joan said. ”Even the smallest poem can tell a story, even haiku. For in poetry, free verse (lineated and prose style) and form poems (sonnet et al.), story is not eclipsed by emotion, lyricism; rather, it is enhanced by those elements.”

I fell in love with Joan’s stories long before we met on Verse-Virtual in 2020 because I related to every one of them. When our son, Ben, died May 25, 2021, Joan shared with me that her son Joey was killed on his college campus of Virginia Tech, when he was struck by a car March 30, 2001 one month before his nineteenth birthday.

“Joey was a great writer and a wonderful son,” she told me. “He was into theatre, he acted in many plays in high school and did some acting in college but he majored in political science, which coincidentally was my major. “

“Every birthday, every holiday and every anniversary of his death is hard,” she warned me. “You never get over losing a child but you never forget him,” she said. “Joey is with me every day.”. She advised me to keep Ben’s memory alive by writing tribute poetry and to keep his pictures so I can look at him every day. I follow that advice which is comforting.

 I am honored to share two tribute poems Joan wrote for Joey as well as other poems about family, food and the moon, her favorite subjects to write about.

 

Bottle Cap

 

We finally sold our

green and silver

Chevy Blazer,

our son's chariot of choice.

Together they galumped

over potholes, blared his music

screeched into parking lots;

arrived "just in time"

for his summer job.

At least once a week

in the days after he died,

I peered into the now

silent car, the

detritus of his last drives—

burger and candy

wrappers, notes, ticket stubs,

testifying to his former presence.

At last we decided to sell.

A shopvac would separate

our son's spirit, or at

least his trash

from his metal steed.

Whirr of the machine

cleared crumbs from

flooring and seats.

I held it above the wrapper-filled

cup holder and something

began to rattle

as the hose tried pull it out.

Off-switch.

I snatched at the offending

metal—a cap from Hanks,

 a premium root beer.

"Nothing like the tang of sassafras and

sugar, " Joe once told me.

Squeezing the cap’s

crimped metal edges

tightly in my palm, I

dropped the cap into my Buick

sedan's cup holder where his

Hanks bottle cap now spins

and rattles--

Joe rides with me.

 

Kitty Hawk Hang Glider School

The glider school brochure

promised an adventure---

Da Vinci design

joined with Icarus’ spirit.

Such was the only recompense

we could offer our teenage son

when he traded time with friends

for time with parents

during senior year spring break.

Beach time, but with parents.

 

Out on Kitty Hawk’s dunes at last,

At the top of the highest one.

as his instructor watched,

Joe lay flat,

strapped into harness.

 

At the signal,

Joe began the course

plodding, then running

down that dune

building to flight speed.

 

Finally, glider’s ungainly

array of metal, canvas and Joe

caught a stray air current

whipping through the dunes.

 

Snatched up, Joe was above the sand!

 

As I watched, he hovered

between the earth and its shadow

skimming over the sand

in his own small, low bit of sky.

 

Airborne, though not yet soaring,

he was indeed, flying,

even for just a moment.

 

All alone.

Not Wilbur. Not Orville.

Just Joe.

A solo flight.

 

My Daughter Gave Me the Moon

 

Just days after my birthday

January,1948,

they tell me,

super moon

slipped through

my bedroom window

to bless my sleeping baby

cheek with his

soft silver kiss.

So, when he returns

in full close glory

I watch for him

through my kitchen

window. 

 

Tonight, his return’s predicted

While cooking supper, I hoped

for some lunar recognition or

at least to glimpse that rare beauty.

Rain and clouds barred

me from meeting moon—

Sunday, Monday.

Even Tuesday morn and eve

fog denied me moon

sighting joy

Tuesday morn,

I complained by phone

to my daughter, Jennie,

who commiserated –

fog had blocked her from

moon sighting too,

miles away in Washington.

On Tuesday night, however,

driving to a meeting,

fog cleared for her; Jennie

spied the moon!

She stopped, snapped—

emailed two photos to me.

So, against all celestial conspiring,

My daughter sent me

what fog tried to hide.

My daughter gave me the moon.

 

What I Found When I Lost My Earring

 

Settling into my window seat

after running to catch my connection,

I reached up remove my earrings.

Left ear's  shiny metal clip-on daisy

easily slid into my hand.

Reaching for its twin,

my fingers found a bare lobe.

Immediately I realized the

probable moment of loss--

when I hastily slung my bag

hard over my shoulder as

I ran for the connecting gate.

I fretted over the loss on the flight,

upset far in disproportion to that

daisy's dollar cost.

That night a vivid dream roiled

my sleep, bringing up a memory

of how, against advice I had foolishly

worn and lost, my mom's aquamarine ring,

a ring her father had made for

her upon her graduation.

In the dream, she was so sad

repeating, "it’s all right."

On my way home,

I stopped at Lost and Found

The blue uniformed- woman

checked her list, shook her head.

I sighed, "Guess I should know

better than to wear something I like

when traveling."

She reached out, clasped my hand.

"Things are just things. If you like

something wear it; enjoy it.

Don’t blame yourself for

what you can’t control.”

That very night I dreamt again of my mother.

She was smiling. On her right hand

She wore her aquamarine ring.

In her left, she held my lost daisy clip-on.

 

On the Making of Pizzelle

 

"Please write your recipe for pizzelle,"

I demanded one winter afternoon,

"They are my favorite cookie."

 

"They are a lot of work,"

she warned reaching

for her red pen and an index card.

She wrote for a minute.

Then stopped.

"Words are not enough.
You need to learn to feel

when the dough

has just enough flour."

 

That very afternoon, together,

we measured, stirred

and measured again,

matching the day’s humidity

with the correct amount of flour.

After her spoon declared

the mix "correct," she

watched me bring the spoon

round and round the bowl

until I could also "feel" the dough's

message—"I am thick enough."

We oiled her special press,
laughed, as I burned the first few,
efforts. Two hours later we

proudly set a plate of

finely finished
specimens before my father and husband.

 

Only then, Mom wrote out the recipe.

Next, she took me to buy a pizzelle iron

from the man who sold one to her.

Twenty years later,

I trace the swirls of my mother’s

orthography

feeling her love

in each loop of  ink,

on the yellowing three by five card.

Mom lives only in my heart,

but annually,

I revive her love as I

measure,

stir, and

press out
crisp light

anise flavored stacks of

pizzelle.

 

Yesterday, my daughter asked
me to email the recipe to her.
I sent a plane ticket instead.
"Mere words,

won't work," I explained.
"Pizzelle making,

reveals its secrets only if 

we work side by side.

Besides, I will need to

buy you a pizzelle iron

from the son of the man

who sold mine to me."

 

Publishing credits: “Bottle Cap” Snapdragon 2017 and Feathers on Stone, “My Daughter Gave Me the Moon”, Super Moon 2016, “Kitty Hawk Hang Glider School.” Languid Lusciousness with Lemon,

“What I Found When I Lost My Earring,” Silver Birch Press and Feathers on Stone and “On the Making of Pizzelle, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon.