Infinite Arrivals by Nick Maione

“St. Catherine of Sienna said, ‘All the way to heaven is heaven.’ So in these songs each day, each step along an epic pilgrimage is revealed as one of infinite arrivals. Full of the joy that comes from mourning, and with the gift for friendship born of loneliness, Nick Maione’s work conjures a distinctive sound: crafted, yet improvised, fresh, plaintive, and vulnerable. Here John of the Cross meets Robert Lax, set to fiddle music.”

—ISAAC (JOHN) SLATER, OCSO

author of Lean and Beyond Measure: The Poetics of the Image in Bernard of Clairvaux

“This book, these poems, their songs, their titles, their arrivals, are playful, somber, soul-searching, celebratory, prayerful. You can meander through this book without fear of losing sight of its solemn intentions. Even better: with every step you will find yourself just where you hoped one day to arrive.”

—DARA BARROIS/DIXON

author of You Good Thing, Reverse Rapture, and Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina

“These poems are a great and joyful surprise. Writing of his real-life pilgrimage on the Camino, Nick Maione offers sharp-eyed detail and characterization, incisive poetic image, humor, and wisdom. Yes, the poet is rooted in the Catholic poetic tradition and is unmistakably serious in his spiritual journey, but at the same time has in spades what poetry must have, or die—newness. The poems crackle on the page. Despite pilgrim-blisters, the pace is quick. We weep with Maione. We laugh. We learn.”

—SALLY READ

author of Dawn of this Hunger

“Devoted to life, Nick Maione gives us an inspirited language desirous and in pursuit of the many places where mystery resides. Modest in tone but not in their aspirations, the multiform poems of Infinite Arrivals seek the very diverse world they encounter—and having patiently perceived that world, allow its ethereal body to glow enigmatically.”

—RON SLATE

author of The Incentive of the Maggot, The Great Wave, and Joy Ride