Dear Dante, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. Iron Pen | Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609372), 2024.

Summary: An imagined conversation with Dante responding to the three sections of the Divine Comedy in sonnets and terza rima.

On the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell set herself a goal of reading through the Divine Comedy in three months. As she read, she wrote a series of poetic responses. She engaged Dante in the forms he used, the sonnet and terza rima. In all, she wrote 42 poems: a Prologue, thirteen poems for each of the three sections, and an Epilogue of two poems. A quote introduces each canto to which she is responding.

Commenting on the poems, she writes:

“Some of the poems I wrote endorse and enlarge on Dante’s vision, others challenge it, and still others reject it out of hand. In these poems, I dare to differ with Dante–an intellectual, spiritual, and artistic act that creates a space for encounter with the master poet, acknowledging a tension that isn’t easily resolved” (p. 9).

From Inferno IV she reflects on what Christ would have thought of Dante’s hell and wonders how the Savior who forgave so many sinners could approve eternal punishment. She wonders if Jesus would have grieved the sinners he failed to retrieve.

Inferno XII describes Dante’s encounter with the bloody river. She equates this with anger and reflects on how anger can be both a pleasure and a cage.

In Purgatorio IX, O’Donnell reflects how we cannot go through Hell, Purgatory, or heaven unchanged. And there is no turning back to what we were. For Christ, however, though he knows of Purgatory, he cannot go through it as the sinless one. And Virgil, Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory, cannot join Dante in passing the gates to Heaven. O’Donnell reflects upon the greatness of his sacrifice.

Heaven is not all sublime for Dante. He grasps the folly of humans who do what they are not supposed to do, Yet they look for mercy undeserved. When Beatrice leaves in Paradiso XXXIII, O’Donnell chides him that he is surprised. He forgets the lessons learned in Hell and Purgatory that we never get what we expect.

O’Donnell ends her reflections with “Dante’s Bargain.” a sonnet. She observes: “His tale of exile and his tears, / the lifetime that he spent / composing lines, creating rhymes / to make the perfect poem / have all survived the test of time.”

While Dante’s time differs from ours, O’Donnell introduces us to the magnificence of the Divine Comedy. And she voices the ways it may seem strange to our ears. I never got past Inferno in my own reading of Dante. O’Donnell has served as a kind of Virgil. Perhaps she will get me to the gates of Paradiso. And who will be the Beatrice to meet me there?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.