Preserving the Unraveled by Katharine Cristiani

In these keenly observed and skillfully executed poems, Katharine Cristiani considers the large questions: How safe are we? Where, when we need it, will our strength come from? What is worth preserving? She, like us, must tend to “the regular things” – bills and groceries, a job, a young child, a parent with Alzheimer’s, and “a cat that pees where she wishes,” but she knows from experience that we are likely to be confronted with events that literally or figuratively T-bone us: physical pain and long recovery, accumulating losses of those we love, growing awareness of our own limitations – life’s unravelings. In one of her strongest poems, Cristiani writes about a collection of useless instruction manuals, poorly translated or out of date, but saved because at one point they seemed to offer answers. For me, these poems are themselves an instruction manual. The answers offered, though tentative, contain wisdom and compassion: No, we are not safe. We derive our strength from preserving what we can—tending to the things that will outlast us.

—Marjorie Stelmach, author of “The Angel of Absolute Zero”

In this bold debut chapbook, Cristiani presents a world “unraveled,” a world of “somersaulting clouds,” loose “blue threads,” and receding tides. Pulled in different directions (“at junctures”), the speaker, with grace and grit, navigates motherhood, aging parents, a “T-boned” car, and a “sixty-hour job.” All these dazzling episodes cascade across the page in staggered lines that also unravel. Amid these acrobatics, however, the poet finds roots in firm soil and family ties—and I found roots in these gorgeous and gripping poems.

–Adam Giannelli, author of “Tremulous Hinge”