Poet Arra Lynn Ross stretches each image or line into something unexpected yet lovely. In Day of the Child, Ross has constructed a single work divided into 99 short stanzas, each liquid and sonorous. Most of the stanzas use you to address her son, Max, this "boy of mine, bright-born of embers," visible in every line. A poet himself, Max's lines are occasionally captured, misspellings and all, inside the cocoon of his mother's stanzas. Concrete images are abundant though they often glance off into abstraction, leaving the reader with more feeling than photograph. Throughout, Ross plays with time and the passing of it as she considers her role as a mother and an artist, noting that "Quantum theory says time is always:/ each moment has always been, will always be:/ bright islands in the sea. Great currents: you, me./ Always, the green ball/ in the street's pink petals. You, unmade; yet there, adored."
In this book-length poem, Ross is able to mingle Minecraft and homework with milkweed and honey locust; she can rhyme facades and gods and leave every poem shimmering with a taut energy. Alliteration is profuse, saturating scenes like "these minutes/ all leanings & leavings limned/ (on my lap, light in arms; I rub your limbs)." This collection is for those who know the brilliant ache of a child always growing and for those who delight in sound and image united in verse. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian