Five years ago You disappeared from our lives.   You left a huge space in  this dimension but  we, your close friends , still feel your presence as  a living warmth . 
Today , Helga read  me one of your exquisite poems from Wishipedia the message of which was incredibly  prescient  and  amazing. Thank you dear  friend for all you have given us.  You will be always  in my heart. 
Isabella

My memory of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco is his  1978 publication of  Roman Candles: An Anthology of Poems by 17 Italo-Canadian Poets. It started the self-recognition of  Italian-Canadian authors as a distinct group contributing to  Canadian Literature.  I begn to do research on this group of writers and this changed by life and career. So we have Giorgio to thank for that.  In 1986 he helped to establish the  Association of Italian-Canadian Writers which has beeb active ever since that day.   In  2011  I edited the volume in his honour: PierGiorgio Di Cicco:  Essays on His Works. Fr. Giorgio came to the book launch  and everyone was very happy to see him. We will miss him.  Rest in peace in a heaven of poetry envisioned by Dante.
Cari saluti  da   Joseph  Pivato,  Edmonton.

We  remember Giorgio and his brilliant heart everyday.
Thinking of you.

Isabella

The blood that moves through your language
moves through mine.
The heart that gives it utterance
is ours alone.

Len Gasparini

A Video Link of Blue Moon (A Trumpet and Guitar Rendition by Father Giorgio and Marco DiScipio) 
The love of music is one of the wonderful things that we shared with Father. I hold this video close to my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjily3OhyXU&t=54s

Father, I am so sad that you are gone. You were my spiritual director, our family friend, the person that made us laugh and not take life too seriously. You encouraged me and supported me in my studies and pushed me to make decisions. You were so human and I loved that about you. Meeting you at St. Bernard as a Monk, laughing with the youth group, making a speech at my wedding, baptizing both of my kids and always being apart of my family.
I will miss you! Rest in peace my friend. God bless you. You are with the Lord now! We love you always❤

Farewell:

I rubbed your coffin 
that your gifts might be contagious 
somehow
that your passion might seep through
the seal,
Confessions of eternity show themself
in the fragments of it you left us--
in silhouettes still speaking
still trumpeting
in the dark. 

I imagine your paradise , 
your face to face with God 
returns you to the Italia
you painted me
--awakened in me.

just now I hear the song 
in the dead of night 
alive with you.
--and all I wanted to say
is sung to you
was known by you
all along.


In 1987, a poem by David Waltner-Toews, from Java (Indonesia) written for Pier Giorgio di Cicco:

This is the street you walk along
after a rain, the concrete glistening
under the greenish glare of streetlights.
The lights are going out.
People are settling down.
The world is blowing up.

The flies this year are irrepressible.
They buzz in my coffee cup,
copulate on the rice, rest on my earlobe.
They are planning what colour the drapes will be
after the war.

I am almost 40, when life, I am told, begins.
To celebrate my birthday, a friend gave me a blow-up
of a colonoscopy picture, and I realize,
that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,
but we are at the wrong end,
looking into the darkness.

I turn, and see a street from 1967,
a clearing in the jungle
an overgrown path between fear, inadequacy, and,
breaking through the low-slung clouds
an unexpected blaze of sun.

This street I am on, Giorgio,
I have started running down,
my habits flapping behind me,
the fumes flowering in my nose.
I have clearance from the tower.
I am almost out of breath.
My feet rotate like wheels, like feet in a cartoon.
We can fly, Giorgio. It’s all in arms control.

Arms away!

I am lifting off.
My eyes are on the light.
Giorgio, flying deeper into the twentieth century,
are you there? 


In 2015, Brick Books asked for writers who wished to celebrate other Canadian poets. This is what I wrote about Pier di Cicco:

https://www.brickbooks.ca/week-8-pier-giorgio-di-cicco-presented-by-david-waltner-toews/


I was very saddened to learn of Di Cicco's passing.  His memory and his poems will live on! 

Oh Giorgio. Visiting Saskatoon in the 1970s, when I was studying vet medicine,  he made passionate re-imagined poetry possible for me in the bleak, bright midwinter, in the chaos snow-squall of belief and unbelief, science and spirituality. When I contemplated moving to Ontario, he assured me that it would be OK, that Ontario was not the end of the world this prairie boy had imagined. I am devastated.

The night I first met Giorgio in 2006, he said something that changed my life.  He said (in that baritone voice of his) "Arts and culture are what make a city fall in love with itself."  That idea started me on a pathway that I continue to walk today.  He was a friend and a mentor and I will never forget him.  

Dear Giorgio, may you rest in peace, after a life so full and brilliant in many different ways. Your help with the two anthologies I edited gave me the encouragement I needed to find my own poetic voice .
Your wit and your piercing intelligence  combined with the grace of your calling to give so many of us the gift of your friendship. Be with the angels, be with the symbolic moth of a summer night.


Will miss sitting on the porch having a beer and some great conversation. God bless and keep you Georgio.

I am a practicing Catholic for all of my life. Father Giorgio did not know me by name, but he touched my heart twice by caring about me. He noticed my pain and gave me a blessing. He connected to me without ever knowing what this meant to me. No other priest in all my life ever showed me such compassion.  I believe that he is with God. I will never forget him. 

Giorgio,

You were the best of us,
The best among us,
Il miglior fra noi,
Il miglior  tra noi.
Fly in your altered state,
Your voice and words and love
singing in our hearts
in mine, 
a joy

To a friend, a brother, a mentor and spiritual advisor, 

Father G, I will miss your presence, your voice, your thoughts and your songs.  I will miss our conversations over a plate of pasta and a glass of wine. I am blessed to have shared many memories with you.  Rest in God's Arms now and suffer no more.  Write your beautiful poetry for God and all his angels.

Salute!


Pier Giorgio, wherever you are your voice still reaches us. And it lingers.
Francesco Loriggio

Saddened by the news yesterday! A very unique  man and priest! We in Serra International were honoured to have known him since his days at Serra House in the late 1980’s. He was then a deeply religious young man who spent much time in front of the blessed sacrament after Mass and during the week, which was a trait that was mostly uncommon in those days (and even so today) unless one had calling to the priesthood and religious life  which he had. His Pastor at St. Clare’s Church in Toronto, the late Fr. Joseph Dal Ferro, noticed this in him, and he recruited him towards the priesthood starting with a 2 year stay at Serra House where he discerned his calling to the priesthood.  Shortly before  his ordination, a large gathering of Serrans honoured him as an Ordinandi and gifted to him his very first computer - which he no doubt used to further his amazing interest in poetry.  We Serrans were privileged to have him visit us as often as was convenient. Sadly, we will now miss his constant humour and this deeply religious yet free spirited priest, as our Good Lord has called him to his eternal home.  May your soul now rest in our Good Lord’s peace, dearly beloved, Toronto’s 2nd Poet Laureate and Priest!
Mario Biscardi
Immediate Past President 
Serra International

Giorgio was a colleague of mine, teaching English at Father Michael Goetz Secondary School in Mississauga in the early 90’s....something many may not know about him. It was an interesting year, but then Giorgio was called back to the priesthood.  His perspective on the students was unique; he made many of us see our job with new eyes. 
He loved people, good company and God. When he came back to our local church as a priest, his homilies became famous for their thoughtfulness and passion. I am sure that God will receive him to  his bosom happily.

Giorgio, I am sad they can never happen again,  those long walks into the night,  the thoughts and laughter we carried into the morning.  Thank God for your poems, in them your company and your deep voice  are forever preserved .

As a very young poet, I read Flying Deeper Into The Century and was blown away. I had the good fortune to meet him, and he was kind enough to give me some advice on some very early poems. I am deeply saddened to learn of his passing, but his words and his generosity of spirit will be with me forever, and thus I am blessed. 

Giorgio came into my life in 1980 amidst the launch of Ethos Magazine.   During those days Giorgio, and his then partner Carolyn Smart, came over for coffee, or dinner, many times.  We always had deep and far reaching conversations, the essence of which transformed my life.

In addition to his love of poetry Giorgio cared deeply about humble people and their concerns.

He recognized me as a Mystic and he said that I am Truly Blessed, which was a great honour.

Giorgio I will always remember you.

With Empyreal Blessings.

Douglas Donegani


Giorgio’s visits were always lively and thought-provoking. He was a supportive presence and an articulate speaker. I remember well his sharing of music in our home. 

Thank you Giorgio for your kind eyes, and the baritone comfort you always offered. Thank you for blaring your trumpet while jamming with Denis & Bryan- the joy in your face while you played remains a glorious memory. Thank you for your words of love when my father died- I keep them close to my heart every day, as we will now keep you forever.  May you soar, dearest Giorgio...

Pier Giorgio was something else - huggable, loveable and insightful.

I met him 20 years ago and we shared many platforms and I remember one phrase ithat s etched into my mind forever 'the task urban planning is to make people fall in love with their city'.

Perfectly captured.

I had the privilege to write the afterword to Municipal Mind 'The language of the senses'. In it, see enclosed, I said

………..and thank you Pier Giorgio for using rich words, for recapturing the sensory, the soulfulness and soulessness of the city and for putting the missing thing centre-stage: The human being.

So my friend you remain a poet, a priest and an urban prophet. 

Charles Landry

Afterword:
The city is an assault on the senses. It is a lived experience. We feel the city. It engenders emotions. It effects our psychology. Emotions drive our life, shape our possibilities, determine our reactions and our outlook on the future. Why then is the language we use to describe the city so technical, lifeless and drained of energy. It is odd that the emotional which is a defining feature of human existence is absent in discussions of city-making. We have lost the language of the senses….

………..and thank you Pier Giorgio for using rich words, for recapturing the sensory, the soulfulness and soulessness of the city and for putting the missing thing centre-stage: The human being.

Our language, unless we look to artists, is hollowed out, eviscerated and dry. It has little to do with people and how they feel and perceive the world. It is as if the city were just a physical container and the people were an afterthought. Urban discussion is shaped by the technical jargon of the professions, especially those in planning and the built environment. The prevalent, interchangeable words and concepts proliferating involve barren, unemotional words that are performance-driven, such as:   Input-output analysis, planning framework, quantitative planning goals, spatial development code, development strategy,

My memory of Giorgio is when he contacted me in Edmonton
in 1977 to contribute to his poetry anthology, Roman Candles,
and thus began the flowering of Italian-Canadian Writing.
This is his literary legacy in addition to his 18 books of poetry.
And for many years he worked as a priest with many communities in Toronto.
Rest in Peace dear Giorgio.
    ---  Joseph  Pivato in  Edmonton


As for the conclusions, something should be left to God.
He's what's left over after the weeping.
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

thank you for  the words  and the inspiration you gave me to write my own.  Rest well Giorgio, the weeping is done.
Gianna Patriarca

I am not anymore 
even if I am not dead yet
every generation becomes degeneration


OBITUARY

Rev. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

July 5, 1949 – December 22, 2019

Jerrett Funeral Homes - St. Clair Chapel

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