Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back poet Emilie Lygren of California with “Book of Records,” a poem exploring the relentless competitive drive our culture instills in children. Remembering elementary school and the way her classmates made up records for all sorts of things, Emilie wishes we told children there is more to life than being the best, first, or most.
“…you are the first at anything you try/ and also the last, and every moment you remember this/ tastes a little sweeter and more precarious,/ like the sun dancing off your shoelaces/ the first time you knotted them all by yourself.”
Emilie’s deep honesty and willingness to see what lies beneath our culture’s preoccupation with performance is mind-blowing. How would our culture be different if we were present and engaged in learning and living rather than trying to meet some benchmark? How much time do we waste dreaming about things that don’t matter and that don’t recognize our individuality? We continue to sacrifice our joy and individuality to meet expectations.
In “Book of Records,” Emilie returns us to the wonder of being alive. The poem is shaped by repetition, beginning with anxious, compressed phrases which broaden as it affirms a deeper, individuated sense of self.
Read “Book of Records” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Emilie Lygren is a poet and outdoor educator who is deeply curious about spiderwebs, people, and moving water. In her teaching and writing, Emilie focuses on the intersections between scientific observations and poetic wonder. She also loves cooking, walking, napping in hammocks, and talking to strangers. If you ever meet Emilie, she would love to hear a story about a special tree you’ve met at some point in your life. In return, she will tell you about a sycamore.
Emilie is the author of two collections of poetry: What We Were Born For (Blue Light Press, 2021) and Once I was a stone (Wayfarer Books, 2025).