“Path of Totality”: A Poetry Reading by Niina Pollari

Niina Pollari reads the title poem from her new collection published by Soft Skull Press

The poem in the video is the title poem from my new book. The path of totality is a term for the shadow zone created by the moon obscuring the sun during a total solar eclipse, like the one I witnessed in 2017. That eclipse was the most shockingly beautiful thing I had ever seen until the day I saw my daughter Lumi.

After she died, I had no words; it was like I was no longer a thinking animal. But the days kept coming, mornings and dusks and nights, and I kept existing, and eventually the words returned and started turning into poems. This writing of poems had nothing to do with my desire to write; I wanted least of all to get up and turn my daughter into a narrative. But my personal flaw is that I describe things for other people to read, and that’s how I link with the world. So this book is my attempt to convey the enormity of my daughter’s impact on me, and on my life, during the brief time I’ve been given to stomp around on this earth.

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“Path of Totality”

Something set you into motion. A chain of events. Rain falling into a series of cups on a chain, then into a small yard where a small ecosystem drinks it.

Something set you into motion. The love I felt for your father when we drove past the mountain house and snapped a few blurred pictures. We talked about the house the whole drive back to New York. The house, a few weeks later, belonged to us. Its dusty corners, its mice in the refrigerator motor.

Something set you into motion. When we signed the documents, we were in the path of totality. To you, to ourselves after we had known you.

From the day of the eclipse, I began, though you wouldn’t form in me for months. But I pledged you my fat and the eyebrows from my face.

On the day of the eclipse, we watched the sky until a hole formed in it and absorbed us. We watched the sky until there was a navel in the universe, and I traveled through it like a nutrient into your veins. Small vessels formed between us. A web formed, drops gleaming on it from my intent. Your fingers, still ghostly, broke the surface tension when they reached from the ether to touch it.