We are all born in the confined sea of our mother’s womb. but once we realize we belong to the infinite ocean of life, we act like selkies drawn to those wider horizons. The poems of this collection can be read in many ways, depending on your “seaborn eyes.” They are deeply private messages from the inside person we wish someone else could know; fleeting reports of universal longings that people can use as they like, like good song lyrics – both urgent and wistful. To a more basic level, they are chronically hopeful odes written by someone who is missing who she used to be.

Arianna Dagnino sets off to sea with a mighty roar, invocating freedom as she heads straight into turbulent winds and crashing waves. She draws you in with her lyrical and vivid poetry, painting a picture of the beauty of life and the simple perfection of nature. This is the kind of poetry I love and Arianna Dagnino delivers.
~ Mark Lipman, poet, editor, Vagabond Books

The sea speaks to us as the sorceress “drowns within herself.” Emotions and sensory impressions silence the train of thoughts. Only a few lines remain – written on the waves. This is pure contemporary poetry.
~ Paolo Gambi, founder of Poetry Renaissance

These precise and under-stated poems in Seaborn Eyes have a universal allure that is irresistible. As poignant as messages in the sand.
~ Alan Twigg, BC Bookworld

When Arianna Dagnino, an intelligent essay writer and insightful novelist, unravelled her poetic papyrus, I drank the salty seas she had travelled, and marvelled at how she found sweetness where bitterness reigns, light where no light shines. This world of oxymorons is the only place to find the solace she offers her readers with such mastery.
~ Antonio D'Alfonso, writer and poet

Over the years Arianna has built an international experience as a lecturer, writer and literary translator. She was raised by the sea in Liguria, Italy; later on she lived in London, Moscow, Boston and Johannesburg before moving to Adelaide, Australia, by the ocean, where she obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature. She currently teaches at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, on another shore. Arianna has written across genres and languages (English and Italian) as much as she has lived across borders. Among her books, the transcultural novel and screenplay The Afrikaner (Guernica, Toronto, 2019; also available in audiobook), inspired by the five years she spent in South Africa as an international reporter, and the creative nonfiction Il quintetto d’Istanbul (Ensemble, Roma, 2021), a fictionalized account of her encounters with five renowned authors met on the transcultural frontier. Seaborn Eyes is her first collection of poems.