Lauren Schwartz: Introduction to Poems by Lana Petersson

Each stanza of Lana’s poem “Ascophyllum Nodosum” paints a great picture of how an individual perceives the world with all of their senses, yet leaves enough room for the experience to be a personal one. She tells us that nature is best appreciated when the “crisp pop the sea weed pods make when you squeeze hard enough that the sticky gel oozes onto your fingers”. The poem begins with a playful observation of marine biology at a young age, with disenchantment of the logic and a longing for the intuitive. It was great how Lana tied it up at the end with a contrast to the beginning and brings it together by pointing out that scientific names and definitions are irrelevant next to the knowledge of first hand experience and perception: “the common name is knotted wrack. And did you know it was edible?”
Lana uses similar imagery in her other poems as well. In her poem entitled “We Lived at 474 Huron Avenue” she captures the childhood experience with lines like “Baby Beluga, sing your little song”. The great line “stuffed bear on watch” evokes an image so familiar to my own childhood and assigns humanistic qualities to stuffed animals—as children often do.
In some of her other poems, Lana continues to let us look back into her childhood with relatable experiences from the reader’s own “The water smooth, just cool enough to ease sun tired skin and just warm enough to let the surface tension line the sides of my face.” It’s as though the reader is with her, in her youth, playing with this young Lana, experiencing with her. She shows the reader—and from that we can enter the past with her, letting our own memories dance with hers.