Alphabet Suite, her seventh publication, is Veronica Michalowski’s vision of a world worth celebrating, centered on her adoration of typography and the Western alphabet. In this collection, twenty-six poems from A to Z are mirrored in English and Castilian Spanish. Each poem is introduced with a famous quotation. Both poem and quotation are enhanced with Michalowski’s lush visual art, which creates a reciprocal engagement and a multi-layered experience for the reader to delight in. She is a multi-media artist with an academic background in design; her artwork is a stunning accompaniment to her written word.
Michalowski's keen eye and pen are turned towards the sensory world in Alphabet Suite. She reveres the design of a bird of prey’s eyrie, nature’s aesthetic proclamation in a leaf, in a blood-red Dahlia, and the way light and color permeate through the Arizona desert landscape. The collection also features poems commemorating the creation of ordinary things, a Sunday meal, or a beautifully set table. “Carousel Horse” is noteworthy, as it exemplifies the making of the horse within a personification. There are also portrait poems that echo with resonance, including the poignant “Bereft, 1961,” a portrayal of her grandmother’s loss experienced as she arranges flowers in a cut-crystal vase.
Michalowski’s poetry is richly descriptive and full of sustaining imagery. Her tone is elegant; her voice is unwavering, clear, and insistent that our lives are meaningful in our connections, within the pursuit of the creative and ritualized, and that luminous design is all around us if we only pay attention.