Book Review: 'Written in Arlington' Poetry Anthology

By Audrey Garrett

Written In Arlington  is the latest poetry anthology edited by Katherine E. Young, former poet laureate of Arlington, Virginia, and one of Northern Virginia's prominent poets. The anthology of poems by 87 poets makes any reader want to move to Arlington or at least pay a visit due to the anthology's prose and lyrical poems describing the country's charm and humble natural beauty. This urge to get moving does not come from the anthology's descriptions of Arlington's heavy traffic on Lee Highway (though idling in traffic is a major theme in the collection) but rather from the diverse poets and their unique abilities to capture Arlington's intimate moments. The anthology’s backdrop of flourishing forests and the idyllic Potomac River contributes to the longing attitude readers feel while reading this anthology.

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​Written in Arlington poets range from high school novices to acclaimed Virginia creative writers including  Sandra Beasley, Andy Fogle, and Hailey Leithauser. The poems are written in English but have scattered translated prose and stanzas from Hindu, Spanish, and Russian each reflecting Arlington's cultural diversity and inclusivity as a housing hub for many Washington, D.C. commuters.  Young's 2020 poetry collection, Written in Arlington lures Arlington outsiders through captivating poems of Arlington’s natural beauty, concrete high rises and, curving parkways with vivid insights into the relationships of Arlington neighbors, strangers, and family members. Together the 250-page collection acts as a literary photo album of Arlington, Virginia in 2020.​

Almost half of the Written in Arlington's poets devote poems to Arlington’s natural beauty, highlighting either its green lush forests or soothing Potomac Riverbanks. Kim O’Connell draws excitement for this landscape in her poem, "Touching Down, Runway 1-19," where she describes the glee felt looking at Arlington from above before landing at Reagan National Airport: “green folds of the mountains tell me we are close...river…guiding us.” O’Connell signals the comforting feeling universally felt upon returning home and her gratitude for her home being the green landscapes of Arlington, Virginia.  

Other poets highlight Arlington's scenic beauty from the ground level. Jennifer Klein's shows her gratitude for Virginia's deciduous trees in her poem "Driving the Parkway". Klein describes her commute:
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                                           the Parkway— 
                                           lined with oaks, maples and elms—  trees
                                           whose canopies have echoed their music 
                                            for centuries.

Her imagery causes driving on a small highway in Arlington to feel like a serene walk through the Amazon. "Driving the Parkway," like many poems in the anthology pushes nature imagery a step further citing the land's history of colonization and racism. Klein states later in the poem her thoughts of commemoration to those occupying the land before her: “Thinking of the people who traveled this route before me— / Indigenous people, slaves, immigrants." Her words voice the lives and stories of past workers, travelings, and indigenous Americans who appreciated and lived off this land before her.

​The pairing of beauty and pain in "Driving the Parkway" is not unique to the anthology. Written in Arlington's poets frequently confront the reality of living in a lush green landscape while also being encroached by concrete office buildings, traffic jams, and highways.
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Amy Young describes Arlington’s loss of wildlife to the gravel-laden rush hours in her poem "Glebe." Young writes, "No offerings of silver fish / in the flash of SUVs, oblivious,” accentuating her feeling of longing for a less developed Virginia. The poem sways back and forth between descriptions of serene peace in nature to contemporary images of mundane suburbia pushing a pessimistic tone for the future.

Other poets in the anthology seem to thrive in the pairing of rich soil and concrete. Carol Heller Nation commemorates her favorite corner pawnshop and drug stores in her poem "Neon Rain at Midnight." With specificity Nation explains her affinity for cloudy dark skies and glowing red drug store signs. She elates, "The drugstore’s open-all-night sign / beckons  in red beyond the parking lot," adding that the "rainbow-colored pothole puddles" are as "pretty as a painting on black velvet." Her affinity for the unexciting sight of a pawn shop “open” sign and routine short drives in the rain ensures Arlington is seen as worth wild place to visit despite its suburban shell.  

Written in Arlington categorizes and captures emotional ties felt between Arlington residents with poems of comradery and compatibility between poets and strangers they meet on Arlington streets and mom-and-pop stores. Amy Young’s poem, "Smile. This cud be you" describes a woman asking for change on Wilson Boulevard with respect and dignity as the heroine of her poem. With reverent wording, Young describes the woman's familiar face as "dependable. A mom...  a fortress." Her words and repetition of the woman's strength and fortitude reflect Arlington residents' respect and observance of one another. Similarly, Lyman Grant meticulously describes a fellow Arlington resident nerves before a first date at ScrewTop Wine Bar in his poem “Menu." Grant describes the bachelor in detail: 
                            
                           freshly showered 
                            from his run home
                            over Memorial Bridge,
                            makes his way to her table, 
                            fingers a final bead  
                            of perspiration
                            from his brow

Grant and other poets in Written in Arlington describe others they meet, dine, and shop with intentionally always investigating their quick companions’ emotional state and demeanor. This empathetic writing clarifies the densely populated Virginia County to not be a place where travelers are lost or forgotten but remembered.  In “Ayers” by Madelyn Rosenberg, the tone of a man searching for a tool at his local hardware store is the focus of the poem. Rosenberg quotes the interaction: 

                           I can probably find the holy grail
                           in here  if I look hard enough.
                          But he is neither religious  
                          nor an archeologist  
                          and he finds, instead,  
                          an egg timer 
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A man running errands is not ignored or unseen in Arlington. Those lucky enough to pass through its parkways, green forests, and humble mom-and-pop shops will have their form, being, and energy acknowledged and accounted for by local Arlington residents and, with luck, possibly be written about in the Virginia county’s next poetry anthology.