To Sip Darjeeling at Dawn

Book excerpt: To Sip Darjeeling at Dawn, by Donna Pucciani, is an intriguing poetic journey through diverse existential moments: returning to the city of one's youth, playing a musical instrument, waiting for lightning, mourning a parent, anticipating one's own death. Her objects of meditation include a vase from Copenhagen, an English summer day, strawberries and frogs, old lovers and new affairs, gardens and cats, gumbo and fugues, a husband who snores. Whether in a Manhattan art gallery or an old amusement park in New Orleans, Pucciani reveals intimate moments of her own life while inviting the reader to share in those moments. Her poetry, which has been published on four continents and translated into Italian and Chinese, invokes universal themes of love and loss, nostalgia and grief, and the joys of the present moment. More importantly, her poems explore the human condition with depth, sensitivity and compassion.