SUGAR FACTORY - A laud for the land, praise for the ecstasy in the ordinary

Oct 13, 2026

Upload by Marglet

Sugar Factory is a poetry collection by Emily Wallis Hughes, framed by artwork from Sarah Riggs and published in New York City (2019). Critical voices foreground themes of listening, attention, memory’s resilience and slippage, and the effort to hold onto fleeting impermanence. The poems move through family histories and dreamlike unreality, linking everyday encounters—travel, fruit, color—with both intimate and ancestral remembrance, while carrying voices of the living and the dead.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages120

Reading Time3 h 5 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction and Praise

Themes: memory, listening, attention

Everyday encounters and ancestral histories

SUGAR FACTORYEMILY WALLIS HUGHES Sugar Factory glows with a glorious haunting,dwelling deep inside the language of listening and attention.Ancestors,predecessors,andmaterial textures transmit in exclamatory abundance the anxiety of time passing.Lines such as“your green stays green"and"how am l?/to end this poem”beautifullycapture an attempt to hold on to fleeting impermanence.The book delights inexpectancy as it flows effortlessly from generation to generation,across continents,and makes a gift of embodiment to each of its varied speakers allowing for theecstatic possibility to"leave one's body and return."Reading Sugar Factory oneis struck simultaneously by the resilience and slippage of memory as it weaves inand out of fragmented storytelling while also asking:what is it that this telling getsdone,what of memory's remains does one have to contend with,and what is it tospeak towards someone who is no longer alive.As"This I"continues to shift andredefine itself,the reader soaks in the pleasure of being a ready recipient movingboth towards specific familial pasts and a dreamlike unreality as each environmentevoked leaves a trail of meditative intimacy. ANNA GURTON-WACHTER Like Whitman's"Song of Myself,"Hughes's Sugar Factory is a laud for the land,adeep song of praise for the ecstasy in the ordinary.Riding the train,peeling fruit,contemplating streaks of color—here we find everyday encounters opening doorwaysto memory,both intimate and ancestral.The result is a quietly fierce collection ofpoems which spans coasts and continents as it boldly"carries the voices of theliving/and the dead." PATRICIA KILLELEA These poems make me so glad.I don't think I've ever seen such a charming useof the exclamation point.And there is such a vastness to these little poems—theway Joanne Kyger or Larry Eigner were able to write like brushstrokes—Emily WallisHughes lives fully,sensually in the natural world,in the city,and in a family's past.Youwill feel so at home in these poems;they are a tonic. MATTHEW RoHRER Emily Wallis Hughes's poems are an absolute joy to read.As a fellow poet—anda fellow Californian—I greatly admire her keen ability to evoke a sense of place.She has that essential gift of making one feel totally immersed in the world of herpoems—and of conjuring in the reader a sense of delicious and aching nostalgia forthings not in the reader's experience.With its light touch and its exceptional rangeof techniques,voices,and registers,Sugar Factory is a treasure. GEOFFREY NUTTER # SUGAR FACTORY Emily Wallis Hughes artwork by Sarah Riggs SPUYTEN DUYVI LNew York City ◎ 2019 Emily Wallis Hughesartwork ◎ Sarah RiggsISBN 978-1-947980-95-2 # Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names:Hughes,Emily Wallis,author.|Riggs,Sarah,1971-artist. Title:Sugar factory/Emily Wallis Hughes;artwork by Sarah Riggs. Description:New York City:Spuyten Duyvil,[2019] Identifiers:LCCN 2018046559|ISBN 9781947980952 Classification:LCC PS3608.U3578 A62019|DDC 811/.6--dc23 LC record available at https:/lccn.loc.gov/2018046559 Magnolia up the road is “unincorporated” —Lisa Fishman is there too much of the sky —Larry Eigner I chased after trees in another part of the worldI wanted to know their name theirfamily I bring you a damp fish —Sarah Kirsch

FAQs

What themes does Sugar Factory emphasize according to the provided commentary?

The excerpts highlight listening and attention, memory’s resilience and slippage, and the tension between fleeting impermanence and the desire to hold on. They also stress intimate and ancestral family histories.

How do the poems connect ordinary life to deeper remembrance?

Commentary describes everyday encounters—such as riding a train, peeling fruit, and observing color—as openings into both personal and ancestral memory.

What makes the collection distinctive in tone and form?

Readers praise the collection as quietly fierce and richly attentive, with a light touch, wide range of techniques, and vivid voices that move across coasts and continents.

Oct 13, 2026

Upload by Marglet