"Without love, attention is only a report. Love with attention, love as attention, a herbarium," writes Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn (A Fish Growing Lungs) in her essay collection I Have This Thing for Flowers. She gives her own relationships the same attention to detail as botanists show to their plants. In doing so, her essays link the flowers and plants she has cultivated to the meaningful connections in her life, as she traces what took her from a broken engagement to a marriage filled with love.
Sawchyn's 21 essays, each titled with the name of a flower that frames the meditation to come, remind readers that gardens and human relationships are not dissimilar in their need for effort and care. The flowers are evocative: Narcissus, Magnolia, Vinca, Echinacea, Jasminum. But these are not just hanging metaphors; they also lead the author to considerations of myth, motherhood, perfumery, and cultivation practices. Sawchyn is just as conscientious in sharing historical and scientific detail as with the personal information integrated into the other reflections. The layering of various topics, stories, personal narratives, and perspectives all provoke a closer look at something taken for granted, be they the flowers themselves or the bonds explored through them.
I Have This Thing for Flowers centers around a single person's experiences but feels accessible and relevant in how it captures the challenges of maintaining and cultivating relationships in the 21st century, not least of which is the relationship readers each might have with themselves. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer