In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Ariana Reines‘s poetry collection The Rose is visceral, wise, and stunning.
Jenny Zhang wrote of the book:
“Ariana Reines’s poetry is what happens when the goddess comes to earth. When ancient mysteries intersect with the effluvia of human life. Nothing is more humbling or unbelievable than the ordinary humanity of an icon. In The Rose, suffering is erotic and exhausting. Love is poisonous and miraculous. The world is abject and hilarious. The goddess can breathe life into being but cannot defeat her own sorrows. The Rose is peerless, divine magic. There’s nothing in the world like it.”
In her own words, here is Ariana Reines‘s Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection The Rose:
During the pandemic I moved to a rapidly-gentrifying town in upstate New York. I had won some money: suddenly and for once in my life I wasn’t broke. I was single though– but you weren’t supposed to touch anyone in those days. Remember? Aside from it being all but illegal to get physically close to anyone outside your “pod”, this town was a notoriously bad place to date: there were the hot divorced women in their forties, but they didn’t want me, the cheese-and-antiques-oriented moneyed (and partnered elder male homosexuals, the Bard graduates (not my thing) and the drug-addicted construction workers. Can you guess which way my affections went?
Seriously though. I had an overwhelming and profound experience of love during this time. I know a lot of people who went far into intimacies with people they might never have chosen under normal circumstances during that time– and with people who might never have chosen them. There was an idealistic moment in the spring and summer of 2021 when I really felt that love was all there is. The person I fell in love with is a talented, beautiful, and wounded person and someone it would require a novel to accurately portray. The veteran of a Crowleyite sex cult with a wry and marvelous sense of humor, The Rose isn’t exactly about him– though I hope does capture a whiff of of the real truth as you turn the pages.
Most of all I want to thank him for turning me on to the Viagara Boys. As for everything else in this playlist– exactly 4 hours and 4 minutes of music– I hope you enjoy it! Lots of my favorite love songs aren’t here, but there are thousands, maybe even millions of love songs in existence. And love songs are one of the good things about life on planet earth. Maybe the whole point of suffering for love is so that love songs can exist. I don’t know! But I made this playlist while working on The Rose and it still brings me back to that time.
Ariana Reines is an award-winning poet, playwright, and performing artist from Salem, Massachusetts. Her books include A Sand Book, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her play Telephone won two Obies and has been performed internationally.