Enjoying “Eros and Sorrow” in Patrycja Humienik‘s poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes (Tin House):
“I’m crying after sex. Kettle’s going off
and off—the arrows in that
sound could puncture even steel.
I pour slowly, opening a curtain
in the back of mind….”
Humienik’s movement through intimacy and familiarity—crying, tea kettles and opening curtains in the mind—draws us into a larger landscape of butterflies and oak trees. The speaker has a deep desire to climb into these expressions of the world around her, reminding the reader in the final lines of the poem, that our landscapes not our own, that we merely carry them for a time. It is a reminder, a prescient comfort, that what we hold in the moment as being so dear or transforming or terrifying will, too, pass. READ NOW
About We Contain Landscapes
“Wondrous. . . . We Contain Landscapes introduces a gorgeous, determined, and vibrant new voice to American poetry.”—Aria Aber, author of Good Girl
To whom do we belong, and at what cost? Patrycja Humienik’s debut poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes, is haunted by questions of desire, borders, and the illusion of national belonging. Bringing music and rich sensory detail to the page, these poems attend to the inextricable link between our bodies and the land. Over six ruminative and lush sections, they survey place and memory, both intergenerationally and through emotional bonds with other immigrant daughters.
Weaving in letters, innovative forms, and meditations on devotion, sexuality, and self-deceit, We Contain Landscapes introduces a speaker who “will not turn away from the ache of this world.” For every reader who also harbors a voracious longing to encounter infinite landscapes and ways of being, this incisive collection dreams toward a more expansive idea of kinship—of becoming beloved to one another and ourselves. READ MORE
About Patrycja Humienik
Patrycja Humienik, daughter of Polish immigrants, is a writer, editor, and performance artist. She has developed writing + movement workshops for the Henry Art Gallery, Arts+Literature Laboratory, Northwest Film Forum, in prisons, and elsewhere. An MFA candidate at UW-Madison, she serves as Events Director for The Seventh Wave, where she is also an editor for the Community Anthologies project. Patrycja grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. READ MORE
About Openings
Openings is a recommendation column for Eckleburg readers, featuring fantastic books with fantastic openings, where readers first meet intriguing characters, settings and moments in which the mind can explore what is and what might be. Explore more great Openings with us at Eckleburg.
