The House Inside My Head by Chris Arvidson

In this debut chapbook, Christine Arvidson gets down to business with sharp and vivid images and wise-ass language of the best sort, all the while addressing the weight and buoyancy of the day-to-day, what’s coming round the bend, the parts “burning through the dark/rough and scaly” as well and the “sparkly bits.” She gives us the small and large ways we are “near disaster.” We live in it, it is our home, the wonderment of every single day, simple or profound. This book is an enchanting tale of living every day with love of someone or something and at least a touch of fear to help us appreciate it. Well done!

–Darnell Arnoult, author of Galaxie Wagon: Poems

The poems in Christine Arvidson’s wonderful collection, The House Inside My Head, indeed zero in obsessively and contemplatively on home, wherever that home might reside. The volume’s speaker forensically catalogues a world that promises respite, a portal of illumination into that mythologized, longed-for “house,” yet a world that remains mysteriously indifferent. Arvidson’s language is sensual, hatched from her unflinching inspection of everything that crosses her path, in her wandering quest to discover “a place to go / Or” – she asks with startling clarity – “is the leaving everything /Where would I wake up and feel / The opposite of being divided.” These are provocative poems. This is a fine book.

–Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012-14) & author of Restoring Sacred Art

Christine Arvidson invites fellow travelers to ride inside a car where a husband is barreling toward possible disaster.  We muse along the beaches of Michigan where “the big things seem smaller,” and “the small things magnify.” We make rugged pilgrimage to Jerusalem and take routine walks past the cemetery as the speaker notices a growing need to stabilize her steps with physical support.

In The House Inside My Head, Arvidson offers a glimpse into how we transform during this twilight called life. Babies take uncertain steps, capable women won’t ask for help, some folks forget to wash their hands at rest stops, and yet, diminished birds “cant downward” in full-throated voice.  Arvidson crafts a travelogue of grit, humor and heart.   Some words might hit you “jagged if you listen hard.” But, as in one poem’s imaginary stroll with Anne Lamott reveals, “the sun rises higher and grows warmer” with each step we take toward our non-geographic home. As one gospel tune proclaims, “I’d take nothin’ for my journey now.”

–Roberta Schultz, author of Touchstones.