Aromatica Poetica is delighted to present The Olfactory Report, a monthly column dedicated to the business of our noses. In it scent artist and writer, Catherine Haley Epstein, shares news, thought pieces, reviews and opinions from the olfactory landscape. For our first edition of this one of a kind column, she presents a round up of some of the more exciting events and initiatives of 2020. Despite it being, and continually being, a year full of isolation, dissonance and breaking …
Tag: Olfaction
Nose Dive by Catherine Haley Epstein * Book Review
Nose Dive: A book for the curious seeking creative potential through their noses (2019) by Catherine Haley Epstein is an adventure for your nose in art, anthropology, and science. You will be amazed at how much you didn’t know about this oft-neglected sense. Epstein is an artist, award-winning writer, designer and curator. She wrote a great review of Milan’s Esxence for us earlier this year, and I was delighted to receive her book available for purchase HERE! As Epstein explains …
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Scent Tracking, Dark Dining, & Other Sensations * Interview with Lawrence Rosenblum, Perceptual Psychologist
*See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses is one of my favorite nonfiction reads in recent years. In it Lawrence Rosenblum, a perceptual psychologist and professor at UC Riverside, explains how our brains are so often taking in more of the world than we are aware, that we are perceiving much more than we are conscious of. From echolocation to our multisensory appreciation of food, Rosenblum makes connections between the super senses of exceptional cases—like blind …
Smell and Taste Reading List * Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry
*This is a dynamic, ever-expanding list of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that engages with smell and taste. In the spirit of mixing disciplines, genres and diverse voices, the list is simply organized in alphabetical order by author. If you don’t see something you think we would like, please let us know in the comments below or by emailing us at info@aromaticapoetica.com* *A* Abood, Maureen. Rose Water and Orange Blossoms: Fresh and Classic Recipes from my Lebanese Kitchen. Ackermann, Diane. …
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Four Poems * Sanjeev Sethi
Bearings Molasses mingle with soupcon of memory creating sweetmeat with your signature. My mirror notes the rufescent. I look for fleece. It teases me of the warmth in your woolens. Plastic is my way of bargaining with bridges that go nowhere. In this resume how do I wiretap the riot within? *First published in The Penmen Review* Whiff Whenever you drop by you leave me with a lyric. Is it the smell of your situation that stirs my olfactories …
“AN OLFACTORY LIFE,” Fiction by Steve Carr
My nose has been trained to sniff out every objectionable smell within sniffing range. It’s a marvel of radar technology. Why the military hasn’t used my nose for national defense, or offense, I have no idea. Being in the hospital, in this bed, my nose has been working overtime. Cleaning fluids. Pure alcohol. The perfumes the nurses wear. My urine soaking through the top sheet. My nose is unable to block out the smell of any of it. My nose …
Poems & Flash Prose by Mel Finefrock
*Aromatica Poetica is delighted to present Mel Finefrock’s poetry and flash prose in our Blind Writers Project series sponsored by Awesome Foundation Disability* Runoff That night, I washed my hair over and over again as if to clear my head of the persistent thought that I must be unclean. Five months down the road, that rose shampoo has only just begun to smell again of other memories, like that weekend at my dad’s or afternoons on the trail with a …
Smelling Old Books While Reading EBooks
When I was about fourteen, my eye disease stole my central vision and left me unable to read normal print. Books handed down from parents and grandparents–Treasure Island and Jane Eyre and (my favorite when I was a kid) a collection of Poe Tales–were suddenly reduced to the physical sensations of touch and smell, traces of what I had been, a voracious sighted reader. You may understand then, dear reader, how wonderful the ubiquity of EBooks is for me and …