Roam

By Susan B.A. Somers-Willett

Book Overview

"Roam" explores the loss of a parent to cancer and the resulting uprootedness that loss can create. In searching for a sense of home and belonging, this collection of free verse looks both inward and outward, to landscapes rural and urban, and speaks in haunting and musical lyrics. Unexpected voices emerge from history and myththose of Joan of Arc, Ophelia, Circe, Daedalus and Icarus, and Achilles mother, Thetisand mingle with the author s own voice. From the naming of the first woman, Eve, to the naming of the first European child born in the Americas, Virginia Dare, these characters seek full houses and, instead, discover empty ones. In a voice that is southern, feminist, and unflinching in its assessments of the self, Susan B. A. Somers-Willett treats personal loss without ceremony or nostalgia. The poems of "Roam "look homeward while acknowledging that one can never return to such elusive comforts. Her lyrics reveal the dangers and delights of an ever-changing, ever-traveling sense of self."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809326906
• ISBN13: 9780809326907
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.3" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Incredible and moving work

I attended a reading by Susan (she is applying for a professorship at my school) and I must say, it was incredible. She is mainly a performace/ slam poet, but a lot of the stuff that she read for us was her more typical work. Her poem on her father slipping away (I think it was "What the Doctors do not Tell You About Morphine") had such a wrenching impact that I felt it in my gut, even sitting in a bland conference room surrounded by professors and other students. She also performed a poem in the "voice" of Ophelia, living as a stripper in modern-day New Orleans, that was absolutely brilliant - the performance was hilarious and very appropriate for a one-woman show or something. This is definitely a collection you should check out.