Buffalo's Calling, by Tony Magistrale

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Buffalo’s Calling is a collection of poems that take us into the life of a poet, Tony Magistrale, and his connection to his hometown, Buffalo, New York. While a few of these poems speak directly to Buffalo as a localized setting, fraught with its unique industrial history, its belligerent winter weather, and a life-long association with his fated football team the Buffalo Bills, the city more accurately serves as the backdrop for reflections on a personal history. Less a physical space, then, Buffalo serves as a kind of photo album capturing a variety of images, what Wordsworth famously called “spots of time” from the poet’s life as he assumes the awkward but resonant position as a conduit connecting generations: looking back at distant memories of his father, while also living beneath and beyond his shadow in his current role as a father to two sons and, more recently, two grandchildren. So, some of these poems are about growing up, while some of them speak to the consequences of that process. The best also rely on a sense of bemused humor/awareness of the absurd that keeps the poet from taking himself and his subject matter too seriously. They address moments of deep feeling—sometimes via joyful surrender to the gifts of love, friendship, athletics, and sex, but also an appreciation of the loss that accompanies us on life’s journey, especially as we grow older. This chapbook is driven by the poet’s obsession, like Lot’s wife, to look back; they speak to us about the importance of memory, of its personal impact, and the discovery that while time may diminish a particular event, writing about it provides a bridge to revivifying its essence.

Tony Magistrale is professor of English at the University of Vermont. He is the author of three books of poetry, the most recently published is titled More Fun Than Pretty (Moon Pie Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Spillway, Chiron Review, Green Mountains Review, South Florida Poetry Review, The Cape Rock, Slipstream, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among other places. He has also written several books on Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and the American Gothic in nineteenth century literature and contemporary film. He has taught many courses encompassing these subjects.