%0 Journal Article %T Devozione: A Poetic Inquiry Into Some Italian American Women¡¯s Devotion to St. Rita %A Michelle Reale %J Cultural Studies £¿ Critical Methodologies %@ 1552-356X %D 2019 %R 10.1177/1532708617750992 %X The devotion of saints in many Italian American households is as natural as breathing. One need not be particularly ¡°religious¡± in the strict sense of the word. There is a mystical quality, especially among the women that I know and have known. In the following poems, I use poetic inquiry to show a vividness of experience that has an ineffable quality that would be more difficult to render in narrative and to ¡°. . . use poetic representation as a means to evoke emotional response in readers and listeners in an effort to produce some shared experience between researcher, audience and participant. %K Italian American women %K devozione %K poetic inquiry %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1532708617750992