Romantic Portrait of a Natural Disaster by Hannah Cajandig-Taylor

“Upon first reading the poems in Hannah Cajandig-Taylor’s Romantic Portrait of a Natural Disaster, I was tempted to think of them as nocturnes, as night music, but Cajandig-Taylor’s poems aren’t quiet. Rather, these poems are sky music—cosmos music—the explosions of solar flares and big bangs that expand and compress with every heartbeat. Throughout, Cajandig-Taylor balances the human experience as both deeply rooted in the body and the earth, and also wondrously entangled in an infinite celestial mystery; black holes and Auroras are just as close to us as ragdolls and tea leaves. The poet delicately navigates interior and exterior landscapes to grapple with our place in the universe. “We were made,” she writes in her first poem, “for the process of unearthing.” The narrators engage with the “unearthing” of vulnerability and self-discovery while also being literally un-Earthed—projected into the atmosphere and beyond the limits of our world, which is, perhaps, a space big enough for the heart to reach its full potential. Yet these poems are also deeply aware of our tenuous position, with the Earth as our only tether and sanctuary. A timely and thoughtful work, Romantic Portrait of a Natural Disaster grapples with what it means to be a human on Earth in the twenty-first century.”

–Rebecca Pelky, author of Horizon of the Dog Woman

“Within the first dozen pages of Romantic Portrait of a Natural Disaster, Hannah Cajandig-Taylor declares “we were forged by glaciers” in a soft, but confident and electric roar. In this book, the world ends beautifully and there is something gorgeous beneath every disaster. Before reading these poems, I believed the best poems were hungry. I know now the best poems are those that have already eaten. This collection, a collection that is forever meandering through a Groundhog Day of endings, teaches us that falling from grace is the first thing we learn to do, and what comes next is molded from these poems, from whatever ending we deem lovely enough to live in.”

 –Matt Mitchell, author of Neon Hollywood Cowboy

“With one foot in the grim reality of our suffering planet and the other still lost in a childlike wonder for all its wild, mysterious offerings, Romantic Portrait of a Natural Disaster pulses, asking questions without ever demanding answers, as though the questions themselves are enough. Hannah Cajandig-Taylor writes ode after aching ode to the hurricane, to the night sky, to fire and rain and rock, exposing herself to the elements and then laying herself bare on the page. A stunning debut from Cajandig-Taylor. I will read this collection again and again.”

–Brenna Womer, author of honeypot