If A Sparrow by Maria Theresa Maggi

Maria Maggi writes of “glue[ing] ourselves to the surface” above an “immense lake,” “as if there’s no / great depth beneath.” In these lyrical sonnets, tinged with human connection, seasonal change, empathy, and loss—there is a great depth of thinking and feeling rippling through the lines and just beneath: an imaginative current that unglues us from everyday complacence and invites us to notice and feel “the soft crushed velvet” of ice, “nothing’s glittering rim,” our “own small joys.” The sonnet form works beautifully to contain what Maggi’s writing simultaneously reminds us is too immense to be contained.

–Alexandra Teague, author of Mortal Geography (Persea 2010), winner of the 2009 Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and 2010 California Book Award, and The Wise and Foolish Builders (Persea 2015)

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]