Unrequited: Poems

Patti intended this collection to be a collage of relationships-those that went awry, or ended too soon, or where the two lovers involved were not well-matched in their dedication or devotion to the relationship. She wrote these poems as a catharsis, an exorcism, a healing. They are interwoven with the seasons and nature, to show the passage of time and how these affairs of the heart started, progressed, and broken down, and how they colored and affected other aspects of the poet’s life. Her intention is to celebrate the finding of love and the spark of desire, and to acknowledge the ways in which, despite our best intentions, we sometimes fall short of love; how longing for an other is often a longing for something inside ourselves which we haven’t yet discovered, and how a lover is often a mirror for that strength or gift inside us. In many of these pieces is the poet’s desire to get it right and I wanted to express that maybe just the risk of loving another, and being loved–sometimes not in the ways the poet had wanted or expected, but with a willingness to go for a wild ride, regardless of where it ended–is in itself getting it right. For the poet, these relationships were indeed a wild ride, and she invites the reader to come along, in the experience of these poems.