PVCC Puma Press: March 2004

	........................

	Photo by Stephen Harding
	Faculty member and poet, Lois Roma-Deeley, MFA, Ph.D, announces publication of her first book of poems, 'Rules of Hunger.'
	........................

"I don't have a favorite poem in the book," says PVCC English faculty and Poet-in-Residence Lois Roma-Deeley while talking about her first full-length collection of poetry. "Some poems are more 'risk-taking' than others, and I have become fond of them because they are 'brave.'"

This spring Roma-Deeley exhibits the bravery necessary of all published authors when she releases "Rules of Hunger." A book launch—poetry reading and book signing—will be held at PVCC on April 30 at 7:30 p.m. in B-208.

"Rules of Hunger" details three generations of Italian-American women. The poet draws from her ethnicity to create a world of various voices . She describes these voices as speaking "stories of small courage—the everyday struggle to be human."

There has been praise for the book from fellow writers. Alberto Rios, Regents Professor at Arizona State University, was Roma-Deeley's former creative writing professor when she was pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Rios, author of eight books of poetry and himself a winner of numerous awards and honors for poetry, said of "Rules of Hunger," "This shadowy play book of poems…gifts the reader with glimpses of a literal peeling away of the narrator's layers of experience. These poems create a mosaic of hard joy."

........................
Passport Just for today, I’m speaking Italian to stray dogs and sullen cats, "Ciao, Bella! Come stai?" When the sky is this water lily blue I think of my mother. Today I decided dying must be something like that— a series of sounds, sharp of flat, unattached to meaning. But the feeling of I-ought-to-know whose teeth marks stripped the tree bark white with fury brings me back to how an ordinary life will leave us.
—Lois Roma-Deeley " Rules of Hunger"
........................

More praise for "Rules of Hunger" comes from Peter Huggins, an award-winning poet and English professor at Auburn University whose poems have appeared in more than 100 journals, magazines and anthologies. In the Fall 2003 edition of Phi Kappa Phi Forum, he reviews Rules of Hunger, writing, "This poet…knows that if she lets the bus 'keep on driving' she will not miss a thing; she has everything she needs."

Roma-Deeley earned her MFA in poetry from Arizona State University where she studied under the direction of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rita Dove, and accomplished poets Norman Dubie as well as Alberto Rios. She has also studied with Jane Hirshfield, C.D. Wright and Marilyn Nelson. In addition, Roma-Deeley holds a Ph.D in creative writing (poetry) from the Union Institute and University. Published in six anthologies and numerous literary journals nationwide, Roma-Deeley was nominated for the 2003 Arizona Governor's Arts Award.

Roma-Deeley has explored the poetic world her entire life. At an early age, she immersed herself in the world of poets such as Emily Dickenson, Walt Whitman and T.S Eliot. She remembers fondly how she would "steal" her cousins' college English textbooks and never return them. However, she credits her older brother, now a retired history teacher, for igniting her love of poetry.

"My brother introduced me to Wordsworth, the French Symbolists and some Italian poets. He would read me poems—some were in English; some were in French; others were in Italian. Nick would explain each of them to me. But, at the end of the night, he would quiz me on all of them! He taught me how to read and understand poetry as well as how it should sound." Roma-Deeley says.

But, even after all that she has accomplished, she is still filled with a hunger for her craft. Currently, she is working on her second manuscript and plans to attend various creative writing conferences and workshops this year. "Rules of Hunger" will be released by Star Cloud Press on March 5.