If There Is No Wind by Margaret R. Sáraco

Book Review by Anna Cavouras

I sit quietly after I have finished reading and I contemplate the cover question: what if there is no wind? I am haunted by the question. Author Margaret R. Sáraco leaves us with many such moments in this varied collection, poems embedded with questions that have no answers but rather leave a haunting mist on your consciousness. 

The poems in If There Is No Wind are varied and sweeping. The title invokes climate issues, but the meaning is deeper and more nuanced with complex and metaphorical poems contrasting with more simple and direct ones. The title poem, “If Wind Were Erased From Earth” focuses on stillness. It references the work of Bob Dylan, pulling well-known lyrics to force the reader to ponder what can be found if the question is lost. 

and if the answer is blowin’ in the wind
if there is no wind, 
there is no answer. 

• “If Wind Were Erased from Earth”

Many poems invoke a feminine spirit, portrayed in various ways across generations. “End of Summer” uses a crying elderly woman. “Identity” uses the author’s mother as she seeks connections through bloodlines. Women are featured prominently in stories about love, devotion, and lasting relationships, linking them to the passing of time and their often lesser-documented role in history. “Eve” is a standout within the collection, a unique poem weaving domestic life with Biblical lore. 

Eve chomps on her pink lady. She is ravenous.
The fridge is packed with sweet red delicious

crisp macs and sour courtlands, green mutsu
yellow ginger golds and sweetened honeycrisp.

The more she eats, the more she wants.
Her snake in the corner, eyes her feast greedily. 

• Eve, p. 70

Sáraco writes with generous abandon, her work querying the world we live in and the one she hopes to create. This heartfelt generosity has created a collection with a deep spiritual and personal connection as she shares her life on the page. Faith resonates through the pages, urging herself and the reader to co-create the life we truly desire. I am still thinking about the idea of losing wind as I close the book. The true strength in this collection is the questions it leaves behind like fallen leaves, there to shelter and nurture until spring. 

Anna Cavouras finds stories everywhere. Some of them have appeared in Studio Magazine,Boneyard Soup, and with the League of Canadian Poets. She is a former writer-in-residence with Firefly Creative Writing and a graduate from SFU The Writer’s Studio. Currently, she is a devoted book reviewer with the Fat Joy Podcast and an editorial assistant with Minerva Rising Press. You can find her walking around somewhere with her feminist agenda tucked in her bag.