Galleymore mentioned how a few years ago when she was writing the book, she met a marine biologist who opposed the idea of “being at one with nature.” He said that every time we have an opportunity to become one with nature, “perhaps we risk losing our responsibility to it.” Galleymore’s poetics, then, are an excavation into “how close / to come to nature without being eaten,” (a line from her poem, “Once”). A poet interested in ecopoetics and the environmental humanities, she read from her poetry collection “Significant Other,” as well as some of her newer works. Hailing all the way from Birmingham, England, Galleymore opened the night by sharing that this was her first reading in the United States. The space resembled a kind of cistern, in which Galleymore and Calvocoressi explored themes of animalism, absence, grief, wonder, and tenderness. In place of the typical shelves that crowd the room, Cambridge residents of all ages packed into the Grolier Poetry Book Shop as Isabel Galleymore and Gabrielle Calvocoressi - two Radcliffe Fellows working on full-length poetry collections - stood behind the microphone. But to Gabrielle Calvocoressi, a cistern is a vessel through which a poem collects and holds itself. A cistern is a kind of collection system, typically located on the roof to collect rainwater.
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