Anna Casamento Arrigo tells of longing, memory, and lingering pain through verdant imagery and mythological metaphor in Petals, a poetry collection.
Poems such as “Life Speaks Loudly” and “Time Too Quickly” establish a focus on the ever-changing seasons, and the power of time to both take away from someone and transform them. Arrigo’s work here is a remembrance of those things gone to the past, both the beautiful and the awful. “A Slow Dance in the Summer Rain” shows the weight of loving memories, while “Treading” reaches for the dreams of childhood, before they were stamped out by the struggles of life.
These poems use vibrant sensory descriptions – especially of the natural world – which ground the heightened emotions to allow readers to connect with them. In fact, readers can listen to some of these poems in musical form on Arrigo’s YouTube channel.
Petals grapples with family and identity in “Who Am I” & “Nonno’s Orchard”, grief over a lost father in “Daddy’s Flower”, and a yearning for connection in “Wrapped in Your Heart”. These themes meld with one another to give a complete sense of loss. Certain intimate details, such as a specific jacket or kind of flower, recur throughout the book. Readers will begin to recognize these motifs, creating a familiarity that will open them to deeper sorrow and joy.
Arrigo explores a sense of being adrift in the world, unsure of even one’s own self.
“Hey Child!” and “More than Now” insist that, even while adrift, there is a powerful urge to act – to take in the world. “My Naked Soul” dalliances with the very cosmos, while “Hollow Men” and “The Reality” use mythology to interrogate how people see themselves, and whether their eyes are clear when they do so.
This sense of interrogation continues, growing into the biblical reckoning of “The Gatekeeper” and the menace of “The Red Knight”. Greed, injustice, and faith intertwine in these poems as Petals sets its sights on those who have used and abused their fellow people and the world around them.
A strong rhythm carries Petals along, with a back-and-forth of long lines and short, as well as comforting and tumultuous emotion.
Arrigo uses occasional formatting changes to make poems such as “The Night Warrior” striking while maintaining a broadly consistent style.
The likewise consistent through-line of reminiscence lends itself well to stark tonal shifts, as these poems hold tight to memories of love, fear, and grief alike. “Sounds and Silent Seas” calls out to the past, asking it to open a path of reunion while indulging in the beauty of what once was. “TOO!” speaks instead of escape, flying away from the darkness of childhood.
And yet, a person can’t let memory consume them, not while they have a present. “Now” stands as an answer to the past – for all of its wonderful and terrible power, it only exists through the lens of what is now.
Through careful description and dedication to the impact of memory, Petals creates a cohesive and affecting collection of poems.
Michael J. Cooper’s latest historical fiction novel, Wages of Empire, draws readers into the perilous journey of sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair and his father into WW1. On this path, their lives will intersect with such historical figures as TE Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, the Arab nationalist Faisal ibn Hussein, the proto-Nazi and advisor to the German kaiser Guido von List, and Kaiser Wilhelm II himself.
The Girl Who Recycled 1 Million Cans, by Shaziya M. Jaffer, Brad W. Rudover, & Jessica Alexanderson, is perfectly written for children between three and eight years old.