Buy Nina’s Books
Nina Romano’s new poetry collection Coffeehouse Meditations is available from Kitsune Books at: http://www.kitsunebooks.com
Four poems from this collection were submitted for a Pushcart Prize.
The book is also available online from Amazon.com
BLURBS: COFFEEHOUSE MEDITATIONS
Whether she is writing about sitting in a Starbucks or traveling the world, Nina Romano’s poems breathe with intimacy, warmth, and a strong, vivid sense of place. While many writers spend time in coffeehouses, few of us actually write about being in them, particularly with Romano’s wit and sharp powers of observation. Her travel poems are written with passion, zest, and a sense of wonder. They’re not about the scenery—they’re about the heart. Like Cooking Lessons, Romano’s first book, Coffeehouse Meditations has a natural unity and clarity that should be the envy of any poet.
~~Jim Daniels, professor and director of Carnegie Mellon’s Creative Writing program, has uniquely published three poetry books in just one month. The new titles, “Digger’s Blues,” “Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars” and “Greatest Hits,” gives Daniels a total of 16 published books, a one-act play and a screenplay.
Nina Romano’s Coffeehouse Meditations concentrate on odes and wry nods
to Starbucks—American coffee with Italian roots—and surprisingly philosophical meditations about domestic life. Laundry, cooking, and driving are all jumping points for Romano’s compassion and longing. Romano skillfully employs meditative prose blocks, tercets and found text (such as Nabokov’s journal and a neighbor’s discarded diary) to extract and build the profound found in the ordinary.
~~Denise Duhamel is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, most recently Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh, 2009), Two and Two (2005), and Mille et un sentiments (2005).
Nina Romano’s Coffeehouse Meditations brims chock-full with warm intelligence and delicate artistry. These charming poems cordially invite every reader—both stranger and friend—to “come in and be welcome.” And what wonderful, companionable stories she tells! There’s a great range of feeling in these poems—love and friendship, anger and frustration, as well as hunger in all its various manifestations. Through it all, Romano reminds us of the vividness of ordinary life, of “guitar music wafting toward me on a gentle summer breeze” and “butterfly bushes/almonding the very air…”
~~ Michael Hettich is the author of several poetry collections and chapbooks, most recently, Flock and Shadow: New and Selected Poems, and Swimmer Dreams.
Nina Romano pays attention to the commonplace and celebrates our sacred days. Her elegiac and lyric voice gives praise to the seemingly mundane and sanctifies the ordinary. She knows how the terrible beauty in the world can seize us and save us–if we let it. Reading Coffeehouse Meditations is a joy and an exhilaration. This is work that matters.
~~John Dufresne is the author of: Requiem, Mass., Love Warps the Mind a Little, Deep in the Shade of Paradise, Louisiana Power and Light, The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction, and Is Life Like This?
Nina Romano is the principal poet of the School of Coffee House scribes. While the rest of us visit these nooks and simply ponder whether to foam or not, Romano digs deeper and finds a place and a prism through which to address what is vital: the rich nuances of marriage and family, the solace found in gardens, night skies, and faith. Samuel Coleridge, Auguste Rodin and other “gods of yore” make appearances, but what draws these poems together is that they are all mined from a curious and thoughtful heart.
~~Emma Telles is the author of Little Spells and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poems and essays have appeared in MiPOesias, Gulf Stream, New Millennium Writings, the Miami Herald, Newsday and Latina magazine.
Blurbs about Cooking Lessons
Buy from Amazon.com
Do not read this book if you are hungry. Do not read this book if the beauty of the Italian language, the joy of Italian life, and the flavors and smells of Italian food drive you mad with desire. Do not read this book unless you are prepared to drop everything, fly to Rome, and fall in love. Or save yourself the trouble: read this book right now, experience it all, and thank Nina Romano for creating a poetic banquet rich enough to feed a multitude of hungry readers.
– Campbell McGrath
Satisfying as an elegant seven-course meal, Nina Romano’s poems are sensuously delicious. Reading these poems, you may not learn how to cook, but you will learn about abundances and scarcity, the elaborate journeys families make. Romano employs images of food as love, nourishment, communication her poems are irresistible, complex, and rich with flavor. Sit down and enjoy the feast.
–Denise Duhamel
Nina Romano’s Cooking Lessons is a sensory delight not just food you can taste the rich, rich magic of all of life in these love poems for the world. A celebratory, embracing spirit dominates this fine debut collection.
–Jim Daniels
In “Cooking Lessons” Nina Romano serves up a brew of tender and bittersweet poems, steeped in history and simmered in love. She celebrates the simple virtues of food, family, and the communal table. She knows that culture is everything we don’t have to do to survive- it’s poetry, it’s cuisine, it’s remembering our roots and passing our gifts on to others.
–John Dufresne.
What a pleasure to read these savory and evocative poems of good food, rich family traditions, and love. Cooking Lessons is teeming with the textures and flavors of actual life. These poems are recipes for healing and delight.
–Michael Hettich
What I love most about Nina Romano’s Cooking Lessons is the way it deftly mixes delicious ingredients into well-crafted and beautiful poems. She has written the Great Italo-American poetry book of love and food and Nina’s wise and compassionate voice urges us to join her in the banquet. The exquisite particulars of tomatoes, garlic, roasted peppers and the like, combined with her evocations of place and memory, lead us unfailingly toward a sensual, lyrical feast.
–Jesse Millner
About Nina s fiction
In a commendation note by author John Dufresne,
(Louisiana Power and Light, Deep in the Shade of Paradise, Love Warps the Mind a Little) he writes:
Nina Romano knows that only what passes is of lasting value, that we are in danger of losing everything we need, including our histories, our families, our love, and ourselves. Her prose is luminous, lyrical, and passionate. Romano has what Nabokov called shamanstvo, the enchanter quality she casts a spell and creates magic on the page. She carries you away to a more vivid and compelling world than the one you live in. Read her tales and remind yourself why you fell in love with books in the first place.
In a commendation from Janet Burroway (Writing Fiction, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft) she writes of Romano s fiction:
Nina Romano was my student and conferee at the FIU Key West Writer’s Conference in fall 2006, where she performed with great energy, intelligence and industry. She is capable of equal tact and incisiveness in the critiquing of other work, and, as a writer, an ability to grasp quickly and express in depth. Her novel in draft, The Secret Language of Women, shows a sensitivity to both character and language that bodes well for her future as a writer.
Rock Press has submitted Nina Romano’s book, Cooking Lessons, as a possible nominee for the Pulitzer Prize.
My books
Coffeehouse Meditations
Lush and lyrical, funny and mundane, Nina Romano’s second bound poetry collection is presented in two parts. The first part, “Coffeehouse,” is inspired by sitting in Starbucks and observing the life around her.
The second part, “Meditations,” ranges out of the ordinary world of the coffeeshop and into the wide world where Romano’s travels and life experience become the substance of her mature poet’s voice.
Review:
The start of the day as coffee brings you out of a slumber can bring quite the thoughts. “Coffeehouse Meditations” is a collection of poetry from Nina Romano as she brings her own brand of wit and wisdom on the world to the page and provides for much thought provoking reading. “Coffeehouse Meditations” is a choice pick for poetry lovers. “Travelling”: in the gait of a fox,/in need of rest,//I couch myself/upon a feather/bed of ease.//But then I feel/the earth open/beneath me/and a spectral hand//reaches up to touch me,/and the grasp/carries away the baby/nestled so snugly,/so wanted in my womb.
Midwest Book Review
Buy this book
Cooking Lessons
Nina Romano’s debut collection celebrates the enchantment of love, life, family, and food. Reading Romano’s poetry is like taking a voyage through an exotic landscape, accompanied by the most adventurous and insightful of guides. Pleasures and surprises abound. The poems glow like jewels, vessels filled to the brim. Come join us at the table. Cooking Lessons promises a feast.
Review
…delicious writing, and yummy reading about exotic landscapes and food. COOKING LESSONS is a gastronomical feast, and fabulous reading fest. — Bookreporter.Com, August, 2007
In Cooking Lessons, Romano takes the reader into her rich, passionate, complex world. It is a poetic treat not to be missed. — The Midwest Book Review, July, 2007
Romano’s poems celebrate the labyrinthine connections between memory and food, and they invite us to stand in the kitchens of our own memories. — The Florida Book Review, August, 2007
There are so many treasures to be found in “Cooking Lessons” and they all have to do with love. — The Compulsive Reader, June, 2007