Reflections on a Vague Obituary, by Olivia F. Soule

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Reflections on a Vague Obituary is a reflection on universal themes like addiction and recovery, family, sexuality, love, and loss. The elegiac poems move chronologically, starting from an innocent and childlike perspective in “At the Hotel”, and moving to a more mature and streetwise point of view in “Reflections on a Vague Obituary”.

The poetry also explores other natural processes, for example, fermentation, plant growth, and decomposition. Family ancestry and trauma interweaving through generations is another thread in the narratives. The mother takes on multiple meanings, as a succulent in “Mother of Thousands”, and a kombucha culture in “Mother SCOBY”. Despite misfortune, human, plant, and bacterial life forms find a way to perpetuate.

Olivia Soule has a B.A. in English and Italian from UCLA and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Nevada, Reno. She has published work in the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Pudding Magazine, and Q/A Poetry, and has participated in poetry readings at the Beat Museum and Bird & Beckett in San Francisco. She studied abroad in Italy during college, and has also written about Italian literature in translation. Her website is: oliviasoule.org.