Quarantine Highway

by Millicent Borges Accardi

Amid a global pandemic, the ceaseless wildfires of California, a political landscape of turmoil, Millicent Borges Accardi offers us a powerful collection of self-reckoning.
—Ángel García, author of Teeth Never Sleep

Genres: Poetry

106 pages, Paperback

Published October 19, 2022

About the author

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American poet, is the author of four books: Quarantine Highway (FlowerSong 2022) Through a Grainy Landscape (2021), Injuring Eternity (2010), and Only More So (Salmon Press, Ireland 2016).

She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts (NEA), the California Arts Council, Barbara Deming Foundation, Canto Mundo, Fulbright, Foundation for Contemporary Arts NYC (Covid grant), Creative Capacity, and Barbara Deming Foundation, “Money for Women.”

Accardi’s poetry has appeared in over 150 publications, including Nimrod, Tampa Review, New Letters and Wallace Stevens Journal as well as in Boomer Girls (Iowa Press) and Chopin with Cherries (Moonrise Press) anthologies. Her theater and book reviews can be found in print and online at The Writers Chronicle, Another Chicago Magazine, Portuguese America Journal and SmokeLong Quarterly.

She received degrees in English and literature from CSULB, holds a Masters in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California (USC) and works as a freelance writer and mentor (manuscript reviews and publishing advice). Past artist residencies include Yaddo, Jentel, Vermont Studio, Fundación Valparaíso in Mojacar and Milkwood in Cesky Krumlov.

Reviews

[Sara Dobbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this stunning collection of poems Millicent Borges Accardi captures the very essence of what it meant to experience the pandemic. Individually, as communities, and as global citizens, humanity hung in the balance through an extremely strange and chaotic period. These poems are suffused with relatable moments, with the unique stress of being safe in your home while riddled with anxiety and fear for the world. In "Let your Eyes Slide Over the Estuary" the concept of lost time is highlighted;

"it is as if we are cotton. Like in a wonderland of what if and then there is another time and we are lost. I don’t know how long this will last since it has taken over who we are so much so and then over and otherwise."

Poems like "What We Call Time" and "Left with Loose Sentences" continue the thread of isolation in time. Perhaps the most poignant is "In Oblivion" encapsulating the absolute disconnection from life as we once knew it.

This is a collection that will speak to your soul and remind you that we all journeyed the "Quarantine Highway" alone yet together, both apart and simultaneously. Highly recommend!!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful, moving collection of poems written early in the COVID 19 pandemic. Most deal with the fear, isolation, and adjustment to the "new normal", but there are others that touch on subjects such as immigration and child sexual abuse by Catholic priests. I have to say I wasn't expecting that one in this collection and I personally wish it hadn't been included. These are well written, but there are a handful of poems where there appear to be typos, duplicated words, or incorrect words. It's hard to tell for sure with poetry, but whether they were intentional or accidental, they muddled the poems disrupted the rhythm. Overall, though, this is a solid collection, even if I have confirmed that it is, in fact, too soon for me to be reading serious pandemic writing.

I received a copy of the book from the author through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program in exchange for my honest review. The opinions are entirely my own and not influenced by the author or LibraryThings.

[Janette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Millicent Borges Accardi very kindly sent me this book to review. The book itself is beautiful, the cover vibrant, and I was excited to read it.

The poetry is immediate and personal, and it completely captures that period of time pre-vaccine when nobody knew what was going to happen. But - and I really didn't want there to be a but - I think it is a generational thing: I can't follow the rhythms of the poetry. I keep stumbling over the lines and being caught up by the punctuation or lack of it instead of being swept away by the imagery. I felt a bit like a Victorian trying to appreciate TS Eliot's jazz syncopation.

I have read it a couple of times, and will come back to it again, but somehow it doesn't grip me.

[Inês Oliveira · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of feelings on the page that leave me craving for more. I loved it.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review pending

[Luanne Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quarantine Highway, the newest poetry collection by Millicent Borges Accardi, examines how it feels to live in a world radically changed within a matter of months. “Do you / remember that time when we held everything / in our arms tightly, as if we knew what we were talking about.” The poems meditate on the deeper questions of life, but they also offer striking and unique images of the physical world. “. . . it was how we did things then, / sighing air, sipping in fine water droplets / into each other’s lungs.” The feeling of being inside, away from a busy life, that so many experienced during the pandemic is replicated in Accardi’s collection by the use of memory as a way to examine present life. This book, like much of Accardi’s work, is heavily influenced by Portuguese and Portuguese-American writers and is a fine contribution to that body of literature.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

**I received this book as an Early Reviewer giveaway.*

This was a great collection of musings and reflections that, while rooted in the shared experience of going through COVID, explore deeper and more unique situations, as well. I enjoy the context offered at the end of the book, where the author shared that many of these poems were written as part of a writing challenge during the pandemic. The two poems that stood out to me the most were "What We Call Time" and "Until Beaten, My Wings."

[Crystal Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as an early review, and I loved every page of Quarantine Highway. I don't typically read poetry; this is a refreshing contemporary poetry book. Anyone with memories of the year 2020 will appreciate the references to Door Dash, Clorox wipes, 6-foot social distancing, etc. Excellent collection of poems that feel familiar.