A lush, luminous collection that explores love in all its beauty, complexity, and ache.
Giampaolo gathers a life shaped by longing, beauty, and emotional intensity in his latest collection. Drawn from four earlier books, these poems trace the shifting landscapes of love—its turbulence, serenity, and the mysterious forces that bind two people across time and imagination. Romance anchors the book, but memory, nature, and dreamlike perception deepen its undertow.
Early poems radiate awe. In “Under Your Spell,” he confesses, “the energy of an exploding star/ is within your eyes contained,” capturing the collection’s fascination with lovers as celestial beings. In “A New Kingdom,” he hungers for language vast enough to hold devotion: “We need a new lexicon,/ maybe, a whole new language/ to describe our sentiments.” Desire here is powerful, even perilous. “A Twig in the Storm” exposes its force as “your yearning flesh/ resists this tsunami of passion.” In “Deep Craving,” he searches cities for a vanished lover only to realize, “You had already found a safe hiding place/ in a corner of my heart.” The shorter forms offer clarity and quiet revelation. In the tanka “Satori,” he writes, “A timeless secon/ of stillness; an undefined/ shimmering beauty.”
Part mourning, part exaltation, this is a meditation on how love wounds, transforms, and ultimately enlarges us.
Pub date October 1, 2025
ISBN 979-8289003744
Age 12-14 years
Price $12.99 (USD) Paperback, $2.99 Kindle edition
