Jenny Factor once did a reading at Amherst, which I remember best for the purported "canzone about fisting," which sounded bizarre and unsatisfactory. I came across the text today; the poem, it turns out, is less bizarre and more unsatisfactory -- quite awful, in fact -- than I remembered. The canzone is a sort of sestina on steroids; there are five endwords, and each stanza has a featured endword, which is repeated over and over and over. I am not aware of any canzones that are actually worth reading.
While on the topic -- not of canzones -- I would like to introduce you to Professor Manfred Pfister, Lowell's German translator and a distinguished scholar of Romance languages:
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Not to be confused with the calzone, which has two ends, and features cheese and sometimes pepperonis.
And occasionally a severed human fist.
Rarely I imagine.
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