Personal Mythologies, by Christiaan Sabatelli

Poetry, chapbook, 24 pages, from Bottlecap Features. In Personal Mythologies, Christiaan Sabatelli weaves narratives from his own life with classic stories from literature and mythology. He asks the reader to move through a multitude of experiences and emotions, starting with a request for intimacy and moving through desire, regret, and loss before finally settling into hope and new beginnings. This collection alludes to contemporary texts, from Amiri Baraka and Sherwood Anderson, in addition to more traditional texts, such as the Bible and Shakespeare. It uses these texts as the foundation for its poems that explore the universal experiences of being human. In other pieces, the collection places the events of Sabatelli’s life, from his mother’s death to the birth of his first son, in an elevated position to join with those more established texts in that exploration. The collection works, in the end, to suggest that the stories we tell ourselves, be they from outside sources or self generated, become the mythology we accept as truth. Christiaan Sabatelli holds an MFA, in poetry, from the University of Florida, and both an MA in Literature and an MAT in Secondary Education from SUNY New Paltz. While at UF, Christiaan worked with Michael Hoffman, and completed his thesis under the guidance of William Logan. His poems have been published in a number of national publications, including Writer’s Journal, A Gathering of Tribes, The Adirondack Review, Chronogram, Abyss & Apex, and Star*Line.