Ligi’s Romantic Series is a polemic collection of ghostly presences absorbing and fleeting. Her language reflects the Romantic poets as if they had left a codicil for her to write but it is no mere codicil as her firebrand delicacy of language gives you a gallery of poets and writers. This gallery of verse re-vivifies Byron and his Circle, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Coleridge with his son Hartley and daughter Sara, Shelley in all his joys and sorrows, Mary Shelley and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft among other pioneers of liberty. Strongly embedded within the Series are the pleas that hail from the French Revolution concerning rights, social and political justice and particularly Women to be free, secure and out of society’s chains. The poems flash like lightning and maintain a naïf feel; innocence more than suavity, gentleness above any hint of ego. They make you pause eerily as you are flung back in time to the Romantics. ‘In the Cradle’. ‘Tooling Ritual’. ‘Queenly Charade’. Walking Thru Versailles’. In ‘Teetering Prosody’ you find the cry for equity through the voice of Dorothy Wordsworth, her predicament and her triumph.
Divided gainst the sea
A prose artist
A poet be
An there if will
couldst bind me in
pen to hand ~complete command
I wouldst ner affix myself so grand
as to walk within
the lines of man
Kevin Kiely poet, critic, and author www.kevinkiely.net/
Aria Ligi holds the fort for Romantic poetry against the seemingly interminable onslaught of modern culture’s insistence there is no soul in man or woman. I have enjoyed reading all of her poetry not only as a manifestation of her own soul’s inner literary beauty but also as cogent evidence of her own largesse of soul to acknowledge poetic genius in male and female poets alike of the Romantic Era.
I embrace with my whole being Aria Ligi’s beauteous, very moving, and vast collection of poetry written in the Romantic tradition for individual Romantic poets. From reading her poetry I get the sense that she could be regarded as a distinguished vintner of this great tradition and could be said to have poured us a generous glass of her sacred romantic wine by way of her poetry collection.
I recommend her verse to all readers unreservedly, as a present diamond sparkling in all directions on the wall of the rather dark, dry, and lifeless cave, culturally speaking, we inhabit in this modern era.
If there is any poet who has captured the wonder and majesty of the Romantic period since these great 18th and 19th century male and female poets left this earth, it is Aria Ligi.
In her own poetic apothecary she mixes the spirit of the Romantic era into her own poetry and then gives to us a kind of literary palliative to fight the effects of nihilism in the modern age whose ubiquitous materialism caused the soul, which was so dear to all the Romantic poets, to be vacuumed out of man and woman altogether.
In this respect, quite apart from the noteworthy lyricism of her verse itself which sings the song of love in all its rawness as well as in all its sweetness, she would have made Percy and Mary Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats and others, very proud of her literary courage and steadfast determination.
Her poetry as a whole is Love Set Wyld in the Trees. One no longer can say the Romantics are long gone but indeed today now live on and through Aria Ligi’s prodigious corpus of poetry.
“Sweet and high O’ beauteous maiden, o’ beast o’ my heart
Thou art both,” from Embraced Plume, by Aria Ligi
from Hymn to Equity Poems for William Wordsworth Volume I in The Romantic Series
J. John Nordstrom, Novelist and poet August 8th, 2015
“Privileged as I’ve been to see this collection evolve and develop over several years now, I have to say that, by any measure, Aria Ligi’s Romantic Series is an extraordinary and, this is a unique literary achievement.
Beyond doubt, Aria has an intuitive and deep understanding of the Romantic tradition. Her research is lovingly meticulous and bears fruit consistently in both the clarity and plentiful telling insights offered to the reader throughout.
Equally convincing is Ms. Ligi’s sparkling technical mastery as a poet, is such an uplifting joy to experience, from one piece to the next.
But this is only the half of it!! What is truly remarkable is the resonant sensitivity and indeed timeless sensibility Aria applies to her subject matter. She effortlessly captures the very essence of key literary personalities as divergent as Coleridge and Wordsworth, Lady Caroline, Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith… It will take your breath away!
The sheer scale and ambition of what are (by the way…) fourteen deliciously illustrated volumes tells you all you need to know about the fiercely burning integrity and fully committed creative heart of this gifted writer.
By anyone’s standards this is a true ‘labour of love’ that I earnestly hope will one day bring Ms. Ligi the proper recognition her outstanding efforts undoubtedly deserve.”
Scott Hastie, Writer and Poet. London August 2015.
“Aria Ligi’s Romantic series features some of the most unforgettable, well- crafted poems I have ever read. From Mary Shelly, Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt and Lady Blessington, she captures the essence of every person she writes for with haunting language. The reader almost feels as if the poets she has written for wrote these poems about themselves. From the first verse to the last, Aria captivates, dazzles and strikes us with her bold lyricism, her extraordinary pathos and ghostly imagination. I would describe the Romantic series as honorable. Aria is nothing less than a poetic genius, and her series a beloved treasure.”
Ashlie Allen, Poet and flash fiction writer, West Virginia, 2015
Aria Ligi 
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