Confluence by Sandra Marchetti

Confluence

by Sandra Marchetti

Sundress Publications, 2015

ISBN: 978-1939675163

71 p.p.

I would be lying if I said I only read Confluence once, set it aside, and went about the rest of my week. But truth be told, I found myself repeatedly coming back to it—recalling a word or a passage that made me thumb back to the particular poem that housed my familiarity. It was refreshing; I was coming back to an old friend, one whom I felt understood me and welcomed me with open arms. And each time I re-read her poetry collection, Sandra Marchetti’s choice of words continually impressed me.

While some people may rattle off description without a forethought, Marchetti surprises and delights with her contextual personifications and juxtapositions, such as “the sky folding back on its spine” (The Return), or “I open a spigot on the raspberries—/ blush hearts in the hand” (Lunch). The delectable visual quality in her work shines surreal, yet tangible, and leaves a lasting impression. Now whenever I eat raspberries, I’ll think of them as tender hearts, drupelets bursting. She has a perceptual knack at arresting words and images and causing them to collide into a new, whimsical formula. In “Storm Dialogue,” the “Rain comes in shifts and pisses. Moving west/ is the gesture; the skies shave the city gray” in a successful attempt at motivating you to view your surroundings under the cloak of foreboding.

Marchetti captures a melodious quality in “The Language of Ice,” with a slight nuance or bow to an almost hypnotic-Shakespearean essence: “Branches reach behind their back,/ trill the stream to sing/ a glad racket of sounds that smack/ of crowning winter’s gleam.” The cadence and rhythm of this particular poem feels as if the words are bouncing off each other, in a perpetual musical play.

Another aspect of Marchetti’s style is the obvious exchange between people and nature—the two entwined, sometimes to the extent of not knowing where one begins and the other ends: “We rub our eyes until/ we’ve made owls/ of each other” (“Blue-Black”) and “I think of transitions—/ slipping-swift days,/ where I lie furred as a moth” (“The Curve”). The entire collection feels as if you’ve been swept away into an alternate universe—not quite steeped in harsh reality—and with the effervescent glow of a mystical parallel (one in which I wish I could reside).

If anything, Marchetti’s collection is a catalyst to something greater overall: an energetic movement towards an enchanted level of awareness in our surroundings, coupled with the eagerness of a frenzied hunger in devouring each and every one of her words. To say that her full-length debut hits right on the mark would be an understatement. We can only hope that a sophomore collection is tumultuously brewing.

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Sandra Marchetti is the author of Confluence, a debut full-length collection of poetry from Sundress Publications, and a co-author of Heart Radicals. Eating Dog Press published an illustrated letterpress edition of her essays and poetry, A Detail in the Landscape, and her first volume, The Canopy, won Midwest Writing Center's Mississippi Valley Chapbook Contest. She is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at Aurora University outside of her hometown of Chicago. (Bio adapted from pw.org).