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Then, Something: Poems

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That these poems are strongly rooted in New England is suggested by the Frostian title and clearly illustrated by sharp images of the New Hampshire landscape. Less fond of moralizing than Frost and more skeptical, Patricia Fargnoli finds strength in endurance, faith in acceptance. Yet these poems have a sly, twinkling humor which segues smoothly into poignant leaps.
In once of my favorites, "Wherever you are going," she advises the reader to "leave your tickets and your Master Charge with its sad balance" as well as "the dust covering the books you meant to read" before you "release breath, leave behind the scars on your fingers...the long one over your heart."
In another, entitled "Grackles," the narrator is in the company of friends visiting the city, hungry, walking some distance as "restaurant after crowded restaurant turned us away." She manages to step away from her friends, the nightclubs with their "frenzied music and hoots of laughter" to the darkness of a grove of trees where the grackles have gathered in the darkening branches.
Some of these poems like the aforementioned are really about what it is to be alive in the world and how to keep that still quiet place inside despite the pressures and distractions of the diurnal, the expectations of others, and the inexorable pressures of time.
There is intelligence and energy in these poems as well as a sense of a life lived paying attention--not only to the local landscape but to what really matters, according to another New Englander who "wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life," the search for meaning. But for Fargnoli,the search includes the willingness to accept that it is may be as fleeting as the light at the bottom of a well.

Because I have read and treasured Patricia Fargnoli's other books, I knew I would be abandoning every other bit of reading when her latest volume, "Then, Something", arrived at my door. I am not disappointed. The one thing that strikes me, so truthfully, when I read this luminous collection of poems (besides the richness of imagery and language, the maturity and masterly use of her craft) is the honesty. It is so inspiring, and also very, very comforting, somehow. Fargnoli's subject matter is sometimes very solemn, but the magic lies in the beauty that she pulls from it, how it softly, yet directly, enters the heart with comfort and illumination of the very fine balance between joy and sorrow, love and fear. It never ceases to amaze me how such a slender book of poems can hold so much weight. It's nothing short of magic to me. Some books are just alive. When I hold them, turn their bright pages, it's like opening one door after another to the mysteries of living and dying in this beautiful and sometimes very dark world we live in. So much to discover in such a small, weightless bundle of paper and ink. Not all books, just some. This is one of them.

As I began to read 'Then, Something' I was reminded of William Carlos Williams' line: "It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there." With her opening poem, "Wherever you are going", I knew that Patricia Fargnoli fully grasps what poetry has to do with life-and-death and that she valiantly sides with life, through all its vicissitudes. As I was carrying this, her latest book, around with me, the national news was informing me of a declining happiness quotient in contemporary women, and I was glad -- happy, actually -- to let her wise and wondrous poetry provide the 'deep background' for such 'news'. For actual current events, in "Pemaquid Variations" she humbly, movingly, with gentle and consummate skill, addresses those of September, 2001.

But the most crucial reason for buying, treasuring and gifting Fargnoli's book is her flair and fortitude when presenting the ordinary miracles, in concrete images that mark the most useful path to shared consciousness. From gorgeously cataloguing nature in "The Gifts of Linnaeus" to wryly singing "Pain's Song"; from lyrically sketching a "Landscape in Black and White" to grittily filming a modern-day "Dante's Inferno", Fargnoli invited me to identify -- but really identify -- with her words.

For a long time, I confess to having kept my own secretly fierce but finite canon of U.S. poets -- Bishop and Rich, Roethke and Stevens, not too many more -- but 'Then, Something' happened to reawaken my interest in all the never-before-seen aspects of poetry I'd sort of forgotten about -- and I immediately got to add a new writer to my list. Ironic, that someone who actually taught me several important things about aging (in "Easter Morning", for example), has also revived in me some long-lost youthful responses to poetry. I am so pleased that the daily Writer's Almanac emails first introduced me to Patricia Fargnoli's work several years (you can also look in Verse Daily's recent archives for a poem from this work), and that she is generous about appearing online and in person, making it easier to relay the news of her finely-crafted and spiritually astute poetry.

Beautiful, heartbreaking poems. Authentic and honest - but never twee or self-indulgent - Patricia Fargnoli's poetry is the real thing - highly recommended.

Stunning poetry by former NH Poet Laureate. Love, Loss, Mortality...these are not new subjects because they are universal concerns. Patricia Fargnoli addresses them in language that is lyrical and moving. And some of her poems surprise, which is what good poems often do. For instance, in "Cold River Season," she says,

And out of the woods two deer came,
carrying their vulnerable bodies with such dignity.

Then she introduces the hunters, "death in their rifles," but she doesn't let the reader rest easy in indignation, for she continues,

We are like them, whether or not we want to be--
intense and after what we could leave alone.

Fargnoli doesn't shy away from tough subjects, but the gracefulness of her imagery and the precision of her language works its magic.

In this stunning new collection, we find some of the same motifs that Fargnoli has explored before--aging, nature, family. But this collection is intriguingly united by other motifs as well, e.g., departures, walking, water, and the search for a destination. While the march towards death is ever-present, the poems also convey a great hunger for life, for more of it. They are reflective, meditative, and questioning as the speaker considers both her past and her future. The poems in this collection are tinged by sorrow. There's much to regret, much that's missing in the speaker's life. And yet, for the reader there is cause for celebration, even rejoicing, in finding a life so relentlessly confronted and so deeply felt. And there is joy in the sheer beauty of the poems.