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FULL SET: Rappaccini’s Garden Book, Deadly Nightshade Candle, Sweet Tobacco Perfume Oil, Botanical Sticker Sheet, & Muslin Drawstring Bag

BOOK: Book Only

RAPPACCINI’S GARDEN

Paperback, 44 glossy pages with color illustrations

Rappaccini’s Garden is a compendium of poisonous poetry with meticulously cultivated poems stemming from a variety of unique poisonous plants. As poets, horticulturalists, & Master Gardeners, Jules Jacob & Sonja Johanson share a deep reverence & knowledge of the toxic flora featured in these pages.

The poems in this collection are accompanied by vibrant illustrations, illuminating the juxtaposition of the danger & beauty of each pernicious specimen. Enter through the once grand gate that nature long ago claimed & step into Rappaccini’s Garden, here a mysterious yet familiar path has been crafted, drawing you in with the dangerous allure & fatal charms of this verdant realm. Open your senses & take in the elegant intoxications of sight & scent, listen to the wisdoms whispered, yet pay heed & do not touch, nor eat of this perilous garden, lest you become firmly rooted in this soil.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE

SOY WAX CANDLE BY MARVEL + MOON

There's a beauty in the forbidden, a thrill in the unknown. This fragrance, with its alluring purple blooms & deceptive fragrance, has captivated & terrified for centuries.

A veil of twilight descends as the candle ignites, releasing an intoxicating blend of midnight musk & black currant.

Hushed tones of moonlit nightshade weave through the fragrance, a whisper of danger veiled in intoxicating sweetness.

Earthy whispers of damp forest floor and a touch of tomato leaf create a haunting yet alluring atmosphere.

Is it beauty or bane? Will it, as the poets offer in Rappaccini's Garden, “quiet our racing heart and trembling limbs”? Light this candle & succumb to the mystery. 

Scent Notes: Tomato leaf. Moss. Black Currant. Musk. Vetiver. Leather. Geranium. 
Adornments: Variety of wildflowers

AUTHORS

JULES JACOB

Jules Jacob’s most recent collection is Kingdom of Glass & Seed (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2023). Her poems, author interviews, features, and book reviews appear or are forthcoming in Laurel Review, Lily Poetry Review, Plume, Rappahannock Review, Rust + Moth, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Jules is an Emeritus Master Gardener and former Court Appointed Special Advocate.

SONJA JOHANSON

Sonja Johanson holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, and has work appearing in American Life in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Plume, Rhino, and elsewhere. Her most recent chapbook is The Burgeoning World (Glass Lyre Press). Sonja lives and works as a horticulturist in the mountains of western Maine.

QUOTES ABOUT THE BOOK

“Stranger under this love-sick tree,” Jules Jacob and Sonja Johanson invite you to walk alongside lost laureates, “feast / on wild rhubarb, parsnip, wine,” and “burst in bloom” as two masters of the art of poetry and horticulture lead you through a lush garden trellised with the history of twenty-six gorgeously written and illustrated poems. Though you may enter Rappacini’s Garden a stranger, you will surely leave a seasoned gardener, blowing “a kiss for every berry” and poem you experienced along the way.

-Jordi Alonso, author of Honeyvoiced and The Lovers’ Phrasebook

How I loved strolling through Rappaccini’s Garden: Poisonous Poetry, with its “ground so rich” and its “sweetness and toxin.” Jules Jacob and Sonja Johanson have created a beautiful, deadly, poetic compendium of twenty-six poisonous plants paired with illustrations that I wanted to touch. “I present luster-stripped / women,” the Rosary Pea tells us, and surely, we must “pay attention.”

 -Jennifer Martelli, author of The Queen of Queens.

Kneel in this poisonous garden and listen closely as Jules Jacob & Sonja Johanson masterfully build story and suspense through each flower, its presence and endless possibility— “Suicide root’s not for chewing, / its carrot scent’s a sham.” Let each vine wrap itself tenderly around your wrist and pull you in. Learn how to seal a lucky buckeye and be “careful not to brush against the leaves” of the Mango Tree. Enter the garden full of delights and poisons, each gorgeous illustration and poem beckoning for you.

-Minadora Macheret, author of Love Me, Anyway