In the Forest of Tombolo

"In the Forest of Tombolo" is inspired by the experiences of an American soldier during the closing days of World War II. By the time John Squillace fell in love with Michelina Colonna, he had deserted from the American army and ended up with a group of renegades and deserters inhabiting a tract of wasteland near Pisa. When the outlaw camp in the forest of Tombolo was broken up, John was assigned to guard the American poet Ezra Pound, who had spent the war making broadcasts for Mussolini. Before he can be reunited with his love, John is sent to the Pacific. When he finds her again after many years, Michelina reveals the great sorrow of her life. Desperate to save her infant son from an abusive father, she had abandoned the baby years earlier in New York. Returning together to America, they search in vain for the boy. A common interest in poetry leads them to a friendship with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and only then do they meet her son, a protege of Allen's and a poet himself. Terrified that the young Gregory Corso will hate her what she has done, she will not tell him that she is his mother.