Writing in the Ether

Poetry. The poems and short prose in Catherine Arra's WRITING IN THE ETHER were born from the connective tissue of memory, the bones of the past, and the spirit that insists not only upon seeing and remembering, but upon reconciling "the holy and the unholy" to embrace what is. Here is a story of a girl growing up in the 1960s with a mysteriously elusive mother, a second-generation immigrant father, and her immigrant grandparents living next door. At the center of the collection is a desire to reach back for clarity and continuity that becomes, in itself, an act of writing in the ether. Through an exploration into her own story, Arra invites each of us to go back and become "forever the sentinel" on the doorstep of our history, to find the sweetest joys, the most devastating betrayals, and in doing so, mark each with a cross, a prayer, and perhaps a poem, because, as Arra writes, "Love eats you, and this is the only way home."