14/04/2026
Coeur de Lion by Ariana Reines
Published in 2007 by the American Poet Ariana Reines, Coeur de Lion is a book-length epistolary love poem. In a recent interview at Cluny Institute's METANOIA (2025) conference, Reines commented that “I tried to study when people feel that they’re falling in love and need to send a certain kind of text message. [...] I’m very very interested in that charge, because that charge grips people in language when they feel this communication is really important. Like something has to pass through language that is bigger than it, that is other to it, that has to go between me and this person, and I really care about how it works. I’m filled with somatic and sensory and [spiritual] energy, and I am invested in how it’s going to work.” For me, this comment is a perfect entry to Reines’ body of work.
Despite being published in 2007, Coeur de Lion defines a period in which digitality begins to permeate the everyday, with references to Gmail, We**am, and Youtube throughout the book. The sans serif font, even, is reminiscent of online communication, and reading it prompted me to think about how the depths of human emotion are explored and potentially exhausted in online environments.
