Review: “Salt and Sea” by Ariana Lee

Reviewed on 5/21/2025

★★★★★

Salt and Sea” is a beautiful poem singing love and distance. The first stanza depicts the speaker eating grapes “half a country/ away [from Mama].” Lee peacefully recounts every step; this familiar ritual infuses her voice with intimacy. The act of consuming has always been bond-creating, yet here the speaker eats alone, a futile effort to reconnect with her mother through emotional resonance. She narrates an oxymoron: “sea” in the “kitchen sink.” This contrasts the warmth of home with a sense of loss and bewilderment, how she finds both solace and nostalgia in grapes. The ending lines of the first stanza disrupt peaceful imageries, with “my tongue a patient destroyer.” This adds motion and liveliness to the poem, suggesting the speaker’s brokenness underneath tranquility. 

Another interesting diction/pun in both stanzas is “globe,” with possible double meanings of the fruit and the world. “Mama’s hands nestled [the globe] between my teeth.” Taking in the grape becomes a symbolic act of eliminating distance on earth. It serves to honor and memorialize. 

The poem continues to meditate on the origin of grapes: “I think/ of bodies growing on distant/ soil.” She turns to the land’s memories. These grapes are given life and meaning by the people who plant them, much like how the speaker gains nourishment from home. Her journey also implies the loss of her cultural identity.

Full Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1639208/salt-and-sea