Tupelo Press

Synopsis

Patricia Fargnoli’s poems are vividly and gratefully aware of the comforts and assurances of the natural world; she does not miss a stitch of beauty, neither does she avoid the darker aspects of . . . human awareness of our continual aging, to which she gives sharp and poignant attention. I have been her champion since her first book Necessary Light was published, and I continue to be so.

I love . . . reading a sister or brother poet and being struck by some beauty or truth, or both, and leaning forward and asking myself, How did she or he do that? This is the experience Then, Something gives me, poem after poem. Fargnoli’s ability to see and connect with the world around her, in its motions and stillness, its darkness and brightness, is uncanny. These haunting poems give comfort even when they probe the inevitabilities of suffering, aging, death. Perhaps it is because Fargnoli loves life, no matter what. Perhaps it is because the poems are simply beautiful.

Reviews

Blurring lines between reality and imagination, between what is and what is not, Fargnoli’s poems challenge the reader to ponder, question, and settle into the quiet unrest of unknowns. . . . Fargnoli’s world is complicated, beautiful, moving, and impenetrable. Her poems are the rain. We are the clouds.

In her third book of poetry, Patricia Fargnoli confronts the recesses of ‘heavy sadnesses’ with a crystallized lyricism and a sensual voice, deciphering the alternate worlds between nature and human, body and spirit. Even the title is prepositional, evoking a ‘somewhere’ that is beyond. . . . Gentle, cautious and mindful, each poem never invades the contemplative space of silence, nor the respectful realm of white and emptiness. From seemingly ordinary acts like walking the dog, watching the garbage man, observing the blue rain, or listening to a mockingbird, Fargnoli draws from quiet yet organic moments metaphysical questions of being to better understand — as well as accept — the time and space she approaches. . . . As compared to Fargnoli’s previous two volumes, this work experiments more daringly with disrupted poetic space and non-sequential narratives. . . . (L)ike all effective artists, her writing is simultaneously a catharsis and a means to assess and communicate the frightening as well as the inspiring.

While the sense of impending death is ever-present, the poems also convey a great hunger for life, for more of it. They are reflective, meditative, questioning. Not surprising then that Fargnoli uses questions as a rhetorical strategy. How fitting this is since the speaker is indeed questioning both her past and her future. This poet skillfully balances idea and technique and makes them work to support each other. . . .

Technically, in this collection Fargnoli reaches beyond what she has done before. For example, the entire second section is comprised of one long poem in 15 parts. Fargnoli also invents a new form in “Lullaby for the Woman Who Walks into the Sea,” a stunning poem recently featured on Poetry Daily. Here we find a good example of how effectively repetition can be used in the hands of a master poet. The repetitions capture the relentless, endless motion of the sea and create a chant-like, pounding music.

We also find a greater freedom and flexibility in line lengths, in the use of indentations, and in the shaping of poems. We find less reliance on the left margin, a greater willingness to spread out and use the full page. (In order to accommodate the poems with long lines, Tupelo used a wider format for the book.) These technical flourishes underscore the sense of motion. Form and meaning come together as they should. The poem, “The Parents,” illustrates how Fargnoli uses indentations to support the poem's meaning.