Exploring the intersection of dreams and personal turmoil, this memoir by award-winning poet Sarah Arvio delves into her journey of self-discovery amidst life's challenges. Through the lens of her dream analysis, she confronts her crises, offering readers a poignant reflection on resilience and the subconscious. Arvio's unique perspective transforms her experiences into a profound narrative about navigating the complexities of life.
The collection features original poems crafted during an extended stay in Rome, blending personal reflection with vivid imagery. These works explore themes of loss, grief, and the quest for renewal, posing profound questions about the value of life. With a mix of playfulness and philosophical depth, the poems express the struggle of coming to terms with one's experiences. Sarah Arvio infuses her writing with wit and formal precision, creating powerful meditations that are colloquial, striking, and deeply resonant.
The poems in this debut work present a unique dialogue between a woman and a multitude of invisible visitors, who engage her with counsel, challenges, and comfort. Through these conversations, themes of destiny, ambition, dreams, and intimate reflections on life are explored, all set against vivid imagery like a stroll on Park Avenue. The wry and uncanny tone adds depth to the exploration of human experience and connection.
Stunning poems of obsession, loss, and the desire for a renewed self, from the award-winning poet“I thought I had left behind the darkness / of the heart,” Arvio confesses in the poem “Small War.” The love Arvio traces in these pages is indeed a battle, one in which the best-laid plans are shattered. Rarely has a poet tackled intimate love with so much invention and bravery.In poem after poem, we meet the troubling lover whose nearness and force undoes her. There are moments of “my naked body and budding pleasure / in the weather of your presence. / Not whether your presence but how.” The voice is vulnerable, self-knowing, often funny; the poet seems to be writing these poems to save herself from a devastating passion. Her weapons are a cascade of brash, freely spoken lines and a powerful command of metaphor, wielded in a search for meaning and understanding.These breathtaking love poems make the collection Arvio’s most universal to date.
A collection of poems that describe a struggle to come to terms with loss and grief and to find a basis for renewal. It features poems that take the form of conversations between a woman and a throng of invisible presences, or 'visitors', who counsel, challenge, cajole and comfort her.