Hymn to Equity is the first of Aria Ligi's Romantic Series, which is so far projected to cover fourteen volumes, including Coleridge, the Shelleys, Keats, Byron, Dorothy (in her own volume), Leigh Hunt, Lady Blessington, Caroline Lamb, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Robinson, William Blake, and the Bluestockings. Ligi's list testifies to the depth of her engagement with Romanticism, one that is not limited to the big six poets or only to men. For this reason, her poetry is not just engaging and accessible, but intelligent and intriguing for both the everyday consumer of poetry and the Romantic scholar alike. In an age of Instagram poetry, poets who read poetry, write it with an awareness of tradition, and then change and adapt that tradition are refreshing and truly new.
Aria Ligi's poetic tribute to the life and poetry of William Wordsworth, Hymn to Equity, validates Phyllis Webb's dictum that the only "proper response to a poem is another poem."
