Caroline Maldonado On Loan 15 October 2026. 63 pp. ISBN 978-3-901993-91-6 £12.00 (+ 4.00 p&p), €12.00 (+ 4.00 p&p), US$ 14.00 (+ 8.00 p&p)   "A wonderful collection of poems which I've read straight through with admiration and will revisit many times. Decades of being at home in central Italy: textures of landscape, trees, fruits, houses, history, the people ... Sights and sounds and insights ... A poet of the highest sensitivity. Another brilliant book from Poetry Salzburg." Timothy Ades "In a world of tremor and uncertainty, here are finely textured poems that listen intently to past and present - syllables between us - to speak with a quiet eloquence of our common humanity." Robert Seatter "Alongside closely observed explorations of the predicament we have created for ourselves and the planet, you will find in these pages a uniquely Italian cornucopia of sunshine, artichokes, apricots, figs, love and generosity. Profoundly humane and empathic, here are poems that traverse temporal, metaphorical and literal landscapes in explorations of the human condition, our relationship to art, nature and each other." Jacqueline Saphra

Order copies of On Loan via PayPal

Table of Contents

Excerpts from On Loan

Crevice

One side of the fissure's lifted
half a metre above the surface, buckled
at the point where the road curves
below the village and the guardrail's tilted.
A mix of textures, tarmac and rubble.
A fresh apple core in the cleft.
Sun on stone makes the road almost white.
From any perspective the crack is black.
 

Avenale (1)

Sheltered by stone walls the two of us lie
under ancient beams with the stalls below
where once oxen hunkered and pigs fed from troughs.
Acceptance takes time. Not local, we'll come and go.
Animals sniff round each other, testing:
Luna first growled but now sits by our table.
Before us a valley blinks with sunflowers,
the hills towards Abruzzo model their peaks
of winter snowfall underneath a sharp blue
and Loreto's church is outlined on the sea
where pilgrims still shuffle up on their knees
towards the statue of the Black Madonna.
We wake early to catch the red sun scaling
the sky, an inch for every breath of ours
till it's white, over the silver strip of sea.
 

Reviews of On Loan