Jack Croughwell
Writer’s Statement
The first poem, “Ricordo i libri,” began with a visit home from school over the summer. I saw the old bookcase that had held the small library I had when I was just starting to get into literature. It no longer held the small selection that I had collected in high school, it was just cluttered with what was left over from the past. All those books came with me to my apartment in college and overflowed onto three different bookcases. I used to be able to pick up any book off the shelf and remember how it got there. Can’t quite do that anymore.
It’s hard to say how “Pensieri zafferani” came to be seeing how it was originally written in spring. I just really like autumn and saffron. “Domanda per mamma” is a picture of my mother and me and our willingness to entertain a joke in seriousness. The poem’s only two seconds of the conversation which later branched into a conversation about amateur ethnography and Jesus Christ Superstar.
The story of “La morta di un’amica di un’amica” isn’t really mine to tell. The origin of “L’ho comprato usato,” however, is easier to share. In the earlier half of college, I’d read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society after buying it off Amazon used. I finished it in a day because I found it remarkably delightful. The previous owner of my copy must have loved mixing morning drinks with reading as the cover is lightly spotted with the marks of glasses, as if the novel was some glorified coaster. I had fun reading it though. It ended up being a single-stanza poem because I liked the ephemeral nature of a memory and how one can just whiz by and leave you alone with nostalgia.
