Catherine Esposito Prescott wonders whether life is planned or accidental
It’s an age-old question: are we here as part of a cosmic or divine plan, or did all of what we call life and existence happen by accident? Or, as Catherine Esposito Prescott asks in the title poem of her new collection, “Did we plant a butterfly garden or did monarchs stumble on / the heirloom tomatoes that needed pollen to transfer from pistil to stamen?”
Perhaps because, as she writes, she was “raised in a religion with many answers,” Prescott doesn’t come to a conclusive answer to the question. But she explores it in a wide array of ways in the 42 poems of Accidental Garden.
The title itself suggests the question. A garden, any garden, is planned; otherwise, it would be wildness. “Garden” suggests design and stewardship. But can such a creation happen by accident?
She’s reading to her daughter about rocks and gemstones before bedtime, and her daughter asks the question, “Who made the rocks?” (The child has a much more confident answer than the mother.) The question lurks on the day she lost her fear of death. It’s uppermost in her mind when she deals with cancer, and when she tries to answer what is lucky and what is unlucky. Or when the superhero in the movie gets the snake bite or the dose of radiation that grants superpowers. And it’s there as she and her family walk among the ruins of Rome on a family vacation.
The question of design or accident even subtly lurks as Prescott watches her son grow up.
Birth
The chant pulls rivers down
my face. I say MA, I sing mother.
I am that; I am not that.
Time escapes. Photographs
turn in a flip book, fanning memory:
What happened to the baby?
His man hands reach for mine,
Fingers once no larger than a rosemary needle.
This plant of mine / not mine
calls to me in the deepest voice,
voice of river rocks. I am
soul struck. When did he arrive?
Did I hold open the door?
No, I was the door.
I was the door.
Catherine Esposito Prescott
Prescott has published two chapbooks, Maria Sings and The Living Ruin, and her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and literary magazines. With Jen Karetnick, she is a co-founder of Supporting Women Writers in Miami (SWWIM) and editor-in-chief of SWWIM Every Day. She received an MFA degree in Creative Writing–Poetry from New York University, and she lives with her family in Florida.
There’s nothing happenstance about how Prescott writes her poems. Words, sentences, and ideas are measured and weighed carefully. Every poem in Accidental Garden is intentional and designed. Collectively, they form a garden of a woman’s life.
Photo by Joel Olives, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
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