Cynthia Anderson’s Arrival might seem like a departure for readers who follow her work. She is a desert poet who often works in short form. In Full Circle, one of her previous books for example, she wrote image-driven haiku that helped to illuminate moments that make desert life exceptional. Arrival is an exploration of many different landscapes, coastal, forest, desert, and more, is a beautiful exploration through longer forms of free verse poetry, which she has written before, and I am glad to see her writing this kind of work. These longer forms, however, have certainly been informed and gained power from her short work. Each of the stanzas and even many lines might have functioned as its own poem if she had gone in that direction again; however, together they build and work toward a greater unified whole that has us understanding the natural world and our place in it in a more powerful way. Like Henry Thoreau or Jack Kerouac, she opens us up to the magic that is contained in the natural world; however, she often presents this magic through a grounding of the science that helps to make it somehow magic. It is a beautiful collection that reminds us that we live in an exceptional world and all we have to do is be present in the moment to experience that magic.
Anderson has the gift of being able to see the common moments of magic that others who have grown world-weary often miss; she brings our attention to them to show us how interconnected we are. In one poem, she addresses a pear that has come from South America but feels natural in her world. While she worries about the energy spent getting her this pear, she also knows that it is kind of miraculous that during COVID she might be able to have a comforting fruit even though she lives in the Mojave Desert. In ‘Doctor, My Eyes,’ she elevates a moment near a hummingbird to where it should be. While others might miss this moment, she is present for it.
My hummingbird friend fans her wings in the spray from the hose. Then she settles on a yucca spear not a foot from my face. We like each other. We like these quiet moments together. Gazing, and breathing. Gazing, and breathing
august dawn
the cool of the day
evaporates (51).
She comes back again and again, to this idea of interconnectedness. How she and the other plants and creatures are not so much different as they are the same. It is a beautiful illustration of how we all should view the world.
She does not, however, simply explore those small moments of nature; she helps us to see the grandness of it as well. In ‘Becoming Sequoia,’ a poem about the largest trees in the world that live for thousands of years, she celebrates what is powerful and to our experiences, seemingly eternal about nature.
. . .you
follow the ways of a shaman,
transmuting air, rock, soil,
water. Your stamina could
build a world from ice (22)
These incredible trees, these forces of nature are given the respect and awe that they deserve. She speaks of them and to them from a religious point of view as though they are High Sierra forest gods. The desert too is explored and understood, its vastness and beauty.
Having lived in California for decades and now having moved away, Anderson brought me back to the natural world that I long knew. It is a place of drama and beauty. So many Californians, and I include myself in this statement, are so caught up in the hassles of life that they often miss the meaning of our connection to the earth. They think of nature as being something other than them. They feel cut off. Experiencing Arrival will reawaken awe in its readers, which I believe is the proper emotion to have.
John Brantingham 4th June 2023
