Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Authors, and Cherished Readers,
Welcome to a very special Update from the Author.
My name is Caitlin Cacciatore, and I’m a poet, writer, essayist, and aspiring novelist from Arverne by the Sea.
Today, I am ecstatic to announce that my poem, “To Build a Home,” recently published in Zoetic Press’s Non-Binary Review, is now available in podcast form, courtesy of Alphanumeric.
You can hear my poem read and put to music by the lovely editors at Zoetic Press, to whom I extend my sincerest thanks.
I don’t often share much about the Muse behind each of my poems – but today, I’m going to tell you all about the Muse behind “To Build a Home,” because she is a wonderful, magical, enchanting woman.
Allow me to introduce you to Marah, my beautiful mother. Like me, she bears her grandmother’s maiden name instead of her own. She was born with double initials, but in honor of my great-grandmother, she changed her name. I came across my own double initials when I changed my last name to honor my late grandmother. It’s practically a family tradition at this point.
Marah taught me most of what I know. She always tells the story of how I asked her one day when I was seven, “Mommy, are you magic?” For a moment, Mommy was confused. She didn’t want to disappoint tiny!me, but she didn’t want to lie either.
She asked me why I thought she was magic.
I answered, “Because every time I have a question, you have a book that has the answer.”
This was no accident, but nor was it magic. It was part of a Herculean effort on my mother’s part to scour my hometown and the surrounding areas for book deals. She used to go to library book sales whenever they were held and would fill up three huge bags of books – also known as how many bags of books she could reasonably carry – meticulously laying down each book and slotting it into place to geometrically maximize the space within the bag. She easily used to leave with seventy-five to a hundred books per bag, or perhaps my memory is exaggerating – but knowing my mother as I do, I’m sure this figure isn’t too far off the mark.
Mom wasn’t magic – but she is magical, and she filled my childhood with such light and luster that to this day, the splendor has yet to fade. It’s like platinum. It doesn’t tarnish, nor does it rust. Age does not weary it, nor have the years condemned it to mere memory.
My Mom is still very much a source of joy, love, wonderment, and inspiration, and remains a veritable fount of knowledge. Her mind can extrapolate from the data points of her lived experience, her extensive education, and her incredible intuition, which is so uncannily accurate that she has been called otherworldly. When people whisper, ‘witch’ behind her back, Mom bears them no heed. She is undoubtedly a woman of science and learning and books, but there is also no denying that we come from a long line of strong Italian strega women.
My maternal line can be traced back through six generations; the roots of my family tree end with a certain Angelo Cacciatore, my mother’s great-great-great grandfather, and his wife, Barbara, nee Lombardo.
I am a proud holder of this name, and a torchbearer of the memory of every Cacciatore that has come before me, whether they were born into this family or married in.
Cacciatore means ‘Hunter.’ It carries with it associations of food – rich, hearty stew, thick with homegrown vegetables and tender meat. Hearth and home come to mind when you think ‘Cacciatore.’ Comfort, as well – a warm meal and a soft bed to follow.
My Mom means all that and more, to me. Above all else, she is my home – and is central to the hearth we’ve built together, out of the memory of all the strong, beautiful, wonderful women that have come before us.
May those memories, and this home, keep us both strong for years to come.
Thank you all for listening to the podcast that contains “To Build a Home,” and thank you – above all others – to my Mom.
May inspiration find you in unexpected places,
Caitlin Cacciatore
