Review of Cat Lady by Mary M. Schmidt

Cat LadyThis is a very original poetry book. It is original because It was written as poetry, but with an underlying meaning suspended between fiction and biography. This is the poetic story of an old gray and bent woman who a day found herself in the eternal city, namely Rome, walking on his feet and trampling on the ground of the seven hills. Usually, she stands near the Coliseum, the most important theatre of the ancient Roman Empire. In front of this building, she fed many cats, so that she is defined Cat Ladyor “Gattara”, like it is said in the Italian language.

Maria, this is her name, an Italian name, loves cats very much. These, instead, give care and nurturing back with meows and not only, also with their great interest in the life and the secrets of dear, old Maria. They talk to her. Verses and words don’t let to understand if cats speak like people or quite through a mental telepathy with Maria. The author is capable to show the story in verses, telling, but never revealing, a flow of words that slowly build an interesting and legendary fairy tale. But Cat Lady is not only poetry, but also a story about wisdom and love and about the most important concept that nothing is ever as it seems. Not even Maria, who serves tasty Italian tuna to her beloved cats.

In reality, she must keep a promise she made to a Roman bishop. This is the story that Maria reveals to her cats: one night, she was hosted in the suite of the bishop who is looking for a beloved girl he met many years ago. She had to be her wife, but a day, she missed. Today , the man is a bishop and Maria promised to find the woman, who, in turn, is a person loving cats. Before dying, the woman asks Maria to care her cats and, at last, also the bishop has wanted that Maria took care of cats forever.

Hence, the presence of Maria in Rome and along with cats is also a promise of eternal love just as it is eternal this beautiful city. This poetry book can be very current just in this time Rome and the Catholic Church are at the center of media debate. But a book is only a book which must be read with no prejudice, because literature is always useful to understand things can never be as we wish they were.

Cat Lady is just this: truth about life and love and an unforgettable praise for Rome. The author, indeed, was a student in Rome during the ’60s and came to know of the many feral cat colonies there. She writes prose, poetry, and was a member of Poets Against the Iraq War. During the AIDS epidemic, Mary M. Schmidt served those in the final stages of the disease, especially those who had been abandoned by their families. She currently lives near Washington DC with her cat Graycie.

Just to leave a gift to Rome and all Italians and her feral cat colonies, the author started the book with the likewise unforgettable final verses of the Dante Alighieri’s poem: La Divina Commedia. Here are the verses: “L’amor che move IL sole e l’altre stelle… Dante, Paradiso Canto XXXIII”. It is true, it is love that moves the sun and the stars in the sky, just like this beautiful poetry book: a love story that moves our souls and our dreams and raises the desire to visit Rome one more time.

Book cover by Ron Keeney

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