Levee

By Paul Otremba

The poems in Paul Otremba's Levee explore the intersection between the ecological, the political, and the personal in a world built on oil and greed. The city of Houston is at once backdrop and metaphor for the ways in which violence--both natural and manmade--have become part and parcel of twenty-first century life. "It's a luxury to be this calm," Otremba writes in the opening poem, a held-breath between the disastrous effects of hurricanes and cancer. Yet Otremba's exquisite lines manage to wrest meaning from the devastation wrought by both global warming and a terminal illness: "If there is a lesson / on how not to worry, it's that you're not stuck only being one thing, /the multitudes in me and the multitudes in you."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1945588411
• ISBN13: 9781945588419
• Release Date: September 2019
• Publisher: Four Way Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.9" x 8.9"