Gioia's poems tell of simple emotions and memories in the context of metaphorical observations. They are not ponderous reflections, but rather notes of slightly amused perplexity. The opening stanza of "The Road" is a good example:
He sometimes felt that he had missed his life
By being far too busy looking for it.
Searching in the distance, he often turned to find
That he had passed some milestone unaware,
And someone else was walking next to him,
First friends, then lovers, now children and a wife.
They were good company--generous, kind,
But equally bewildered to be there.
Gioia is best when he touches lightly on the heavy blows that life often strikes. "Special Treatments Ward" tells of a children's hospital wing
...where the children come to die,
hidden on the hospital's highest floor....
No one chooses to be here. We play the parts
that we are given--horrible as they are.
We try to play them well, whatever that means.
Arranged in five sections, the poems in Pity the Beautiful cover a broad sweep of subjects and forms. They include a few translations, four songs from a libretto and a longer poem, "The Haunted," of a love affair thwarted by ghosts.
To his credit, Gioia makes no attempt to plumb the depths of our modern angst or push the boundaries of contemporary verse. Instead, he lets his far-reaching interests pull us into poems of simple grace, gentle irony and comfortable form. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.