In the archives

In the archives offers a lyrically rich, emotionally compelling cycle of poems that explores the alienation and longing we feel as we face the increased mechanization and frightening militarization of our present moment. In these formally inventive poems, Arigo demonstrates how each phrase can keep the reader alive to the reading experience as this writer explores and exposes a poetics of intimate as well as expansive vision. As the titles of many of the poem cycles suggest―“Abbreviated Inventories,” “Catalogued evidence,” “Tracking sites,” to name a few― Arigo is interested in discerning how we organize our understanding of the world we live in, and how that understanding impacts our lives. These poems are astute listening devices, catching the moments “when songs and lightning suspend / present tenses.”