The Apple Tree

In The Apple Tree, the title poem in this collection, Catherine Arnold explores the cost of emotional repression, of feeling trapped in a code of silence and invisibility. The poems that follow dive into the experience of a woman gradually discovering her creative voice, becoming an artist and learning to embrace the world of color and touch.

In vivid, lyrical language, Arnold explores what it means to leave behind a set of inherited rules that distrust the physical world and shut down the power of wonder and spontaneity. She considers the price of freedom, what it means to feel like an exile, and the nature of maternal love; many of the poems are addressed to her daughter.

This is Arnold's second collection. Her debut, Receipt for Lost Words, won the 2022 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize.