Cynthia Arrieu-King

Continuity Cynthia Arrieu-King

Poetry. Cynthia Arrieu-King's beautiful new book manages to feel written on the occasion of both a birth and a death; and perhaps it means to remind us that the passage of time necessitates both; as it brims with energy and elegy at once. I love the urge and pull of her richly textured language; her vision of what sorrow can teach us; her poem-as-jeweled-time-traveling-mausoleum; a place where we keep both our beloveds and our own past selves. Elegy doesn't resurrect; but in CONTINUITY it does teach; distill; unveil. It folds time. Thus it reaches for; thus it does reach. 'They keep / saying your place / isn't a room; but / a kind of paragraph.' Yes. Here. My gratitude to this poet for showing me new languages for feelings I thought I knew.--Wendy Xu