Aromatica Poetica

The image is an artistic illustration depicting a man sleeping in a train compartment. He is wearing a suit and is slumped in his seat with his head tilted back and mouth slightly open. Above his head is a thought bubble showing a plate with bread, grapes, and cheese, suggesting he is dreaming about food. On the small table in front of him is a bottle of wine labeled "Bordeaux France" and a glass of red wine. The train window shows a scenic view with a setting sun over a landscape. The interior of the train has wooden paneling, and there is another passenger visible through the door in the background. The borders of the image are decorated with grapevine motifs.

“The Train to Bordeaux” & Other Poems By Mike Lewis-Beck

aromatica poetica January 15, 2025

The Train to Bordeaux left Paris under delays from a Metro slowdown, a Yellow Vest street action, and a heat wave of 42 degrees Celsius that perhaps caused the Arras diversion due to an announced ‘obstacle’ on the tracks, a could-be jump. German newlyweds across from us, red and happy, brimmed with cold beer downed in the station patio sun. As the train passed Poitiers, gateway to the South, I dreamt of a chilled Pineau des Charentes with a …

The image is a colorful, comic book-style illustration of a kitchen scene. In the center, there is a large pressure cooker on a stove, with steam dramatically bursting out from the top, creating a cloud-like explosion effect. The background features green cabinets and a yellow wall with a red polka dot pattern. On the stove, there are two smaller pots with lids. To the right, there is a countertop with a watermelon, a pineapple, a tomato, and a bowl of fruit. The overall style is vibrant and exaggerated, typical of comic book art.

“Cooked Under Pressure” & Other Poems * Joan Mazza

aromatica poetica June 18, 2024

Cooked Under Pressure My mother loved her pressure cooker and gave testimony as if in a commercial: Preserves vitamins, fast cooking! Energy efficient! Sterilizes your food! Even quick-cooking vegetables like spinach, escarole, and broccoli went under the power of pressure, set the valve jiggling as if it might explode at any second. My father arrived as Mother served the meal. He washed his hands and ate in silence, while pressure built in that small dinette. We knew he could blow …

A photorealistic image of a white woman’s legs wearing a black skirt and brown tennis shoes steps out of a subway. To her right is a pile of dog shit she is trying to avoid. Credit: Imagine.Art.

“Dog Shit” * Nonfiction * Ro Miller

aromatica poetica May 29, 2024

I stepped in dog shit right before getting on a Brooklyn-bound Q train and spent the remaining twenty-six minutes considering scent as a social factor. The first thing about dog shit is the feel of the sole of your shoe sliding beneath you. The squish is muted, but immediately there is an odor. Not one that you can smell but rather one that exists as quiet disgust in the back of your throat. A quick glance backward pushes the nausea …

Albert, a male mandrill with his red and blue face squats on a rock in the Berlin Zoo with some trees behind him: Sep 2015 by Katma0601. Creative Commons.

“The Flavors of Red” & Other Poems * Sharon Whitehill

aromatica poetica May 15, 2024

The Flavors of Red 1 It arrives with the salt taste of blood, the hot-pepper burn on the tongue, strikes the ear with the force of a shouted command or the pitch of a scream, and remains like the lingering mark of a slap, the invisible glow of an unwanted touch. 2 Drink your wine in a room …

Black and white illustration of a woman sitting at a desk looking at her computer screen from a back/side angle. Her hair is in a loose bun on the top of her head and she’s wearing a tank top. Beside her is a window with curtains that are bunched and tied revealing a night sky: a crescent moon and some stars beyond. Glowing light shows a portion of face and arm, but all is mostly black. On the desk is a big computer screen, keyboard, a cup with pencils, some books, and a tissue box. On the screen is a color promo photo of Fille en Aiguilles. The sleek black bottle, skyscraper like, with a rectangular body and cylindrical top is resting in an amber pond surrounded by pine needles. Illustration by Alabaster Rhumb for The Sillage Series. This one about trauma.

Sillage 4: Fille en Aiguilles * Poem + Essay * Jehanne Dubrow

aromatica poetica April 18, 2024

Aromatica Poetica is delighted to present the fourth in the Sillage series by Jehanne Dubrow. She is the author of several books of poetry and prose that dance with our heart’s senses, including Taste: A Book of Small Bites, which we highly recommend! Each of the 12 poems are written in the voice of a specific perfume—this one is Fille en Aiguilles[i]—and were begun during the height of the pandemic. For this Sillage series, the poems are paired with a …

Fog Man: an image of a human figure, from the hip up, shrouded in fog with his hands pressed against apparent glass closest to the viewer—they alone are black, the rest is greys and whites.

“Fog Man” & Other Poems By Michael Lee Johnson

aromatica poetica April 9, 2024

Fog Man (V2) https://www.aromaticapoetica.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FogManV2ShorieF.mp3 There is a stranger in the fog screaming into this harbor tonight. A lonely son-of-a-bitch without a mother or a lover. He screams obscenities with bad breath. There is a way the moon investigates a sailor in fog at night, sheltering no one. Hungover in the lead piping suffering from myopia but downing in pride, hyperopia magnified. These memories are distant. A lady now of a dream still walker on sliding sand near that beach, leaving …

A digital collage of the Basenote bitch exhibition in Olfactory Art Keller in all its pink glory: The pink sniffing table with scented scrunchies under domes with coordinated suckers and doodads from the photo installations, some of the bottles of the featured fragrances on a pink vanity, flanked by the four images featured here hanging on the pink walls of the gallery -- Fahrenheit. Dream, Love Spell, Country Apple – all of which get detailed image descriptions below…

Basenote Bitch * Elizabeth Renstrom * Fragrant Photos + Image Descriptions

aromatica poetica March 21, 2024

Hello, it’s Leona, Aromatica Poetica’s founding editor here. I was delighted to lead a verbal description tour and conversation with the artist Elizabeth Renstrom at Olfactory Art Keller last weekend. I wanted to share some of that fragrant, nostalgic fun with you! For the image descriptions, I chose four of the eight fragrant works and organized them chronologically: Fahrenheit (1988); Dream (1995); Country Apple (1997); and Love Spell (1999). For NYC friends, you can check out the Basenote Bitch exhibition …

A photograph of a serene winter landscape at sunset. The sun is low in the sky, casting a warm golden light that illuminates the scene. The foreground is dominated by a field covered with snow and dotted with dry, golden grasses and shrubs that glisten in the sunlight. The middle ground shows a few buildings, possibly homes, nestled at the base of a hill. The hill and the buildings are partially shadowed, creating a contrast with the brightly lit field. In the background, there are rolling hills that fade into the distance, and the sky above is a mix of blue and soft orange hues with some scattered clouds. The overall atmosphere is peaceful and picturesque, with the sun's rays adding a touch of warmth to the cold winter setting. Curtesy Florian Birkmayer, for “The Molecules of Connectedness.”

“The Molecules of Connectedness” * Book Excerpt * Florian Birkmayer, MD

aromatica poetica March 14, 2024

Aromatica Poetica is honored to present “The Molecules of Connectedness,” an excerpt from Essential Oils for Psychedelic Therapy Support: An Introduction to the AromaGnosis Method by Florian Birkmayer MD. Florian gave us one of our first interviews—way back in 2017! That interview details his journey from his first exposure to aromatherapy in childhood and subsequent medical training in psychiatry at Columbia University, to his practice with clients—most of whom suffered from trauma and PTSD, to the creation of AromaGnosis with …

A digital illustration of a white woman in a black sleeveless dress stands against a black backdrop. She holds a smoking object in her left hand, and, in her right, she holds a cord connected to a hanging cauldron. Subtle, amber light emanates from the right hand. From Ro Miller, credit: Imagine.Art.

“Scent of Faith” * Nonfiction * Ro Miller

aromatica poetica February 15, 2024

I was indoctrinated as a Catholic, so you will forgive the following several hundred words. I recently attended the Riverside Church Candlelight Carol Festival, an event aptly structured around a selection of Christian Carols. Upon sitting in the closely packed pews, wearing what now amounts to my Sunday best, I was thrust back into the bittersweet memories of Sunday mass. The proximity of strangers, the lukewarm dread at the approaching sermon, and the stoic resignation that worship was my reality …

A white morel (Morchella americana) growing in mossy soil on the bank of the Grand River in Michigan. By Iain Walker - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126114263.

“WANTING” * Fiction * Mike Lewis-Beck

aromatica poetica January 30, 2024

Hilda has it all. She’s 42, mother of bubbly two-year-old Todd, and a professor of intellectual property law, where she has just made a bundle—her share in an inheritance suit deploying ‘The Eustace Diamond Defense’—which persuaded the judge to allow Mrs. Mandolini to keep the family diamonds her late husband, olive oil magnate Giuseppe Mandolini, had lavished upon her. Besides these personal and professional triumphs, she has just won a weight-lifting trophy at her fitness club, for executing a 190-pound …