“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest.”
–Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time.
Aromatica Poetica combines a love of literature with a love of smell and taste in a colossal endeavor to promote and celebrate the oft-neglected senses. Here you will find essays, stories & poems, interviews, and reviews that engage with smell and taste through a variety of lenses including the literary, artistic, and scientific.
Many books have influenced the direction of Aromatica Poetica, from Perfume by Patrick Suskind to Fragrant by Mandy Aftel, from The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
If you think you might like to contribute to Aromatica Poetica, please visit our Submissions page, or send a pitch to AromaticaPoetica@gmail.com.
About the Editor
Dr. M. Leona Godin is the found
Dr. M. Leona Godin is the founder of Aromatica poetica and the 2025-26 Jean Strouse Fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She is the author of There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness. Her writing has appeared in Art in America, The New York Times, ARTnews, O Magazine, and others. Her work has received support from MacDowell, Yaddo, and a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship. Her experimental lectures employ scent to explore the rich potentials of synesthesia and disability aesthetics.
“Without the shy, fugitive, often unobserved sensations and the certainties which taste, smell, and touch give me, I should be obliged to take my conception of the universe wholly from others. I should lack the alchemy by which I now infuse into my world light, color, and the Protean spark.”
–Helen Keller, The World I Live In