Scavo, Sue: Buried [A Place]

Description

Anhinga, paperback

Publication Date: April 10, 2022

Publisher Marketing: Buried [A Place] tracks a woman’s journey, through the shadowy realm of story, relationship, and trauma, in a haunting and challenging re-imagining of Dante’s Inferno. The poet’s odyssey resurrects the self and the feminine from the crushing weight of cultural and personal history, while raising the question of self in relation and correlation to other. Beginning with, “I was lost. You must understand, utterly,” we are plunged into a world where stories and language clash dream-like. The narrator faces these clashes on her journey, but also encounters conflicts with the entities who appear to guide her. What to do when one is lost? Who do we follow or call upon for help when fighting internal monsters? External ones? When does a teacher, a mentor, a brother, a father, no matter how seemingly beloved, become something else? “Which are you?” the narrator asks over and over – even of herself. In near-primal bracketed language, in external dialogues and internal asides, the poems of Buried [A Place] track an odyssey that curves, circles, and crashes in on itself, often leaving us breathless. This is one woman’s revelation of the self, of the feminine, buried underneath the crushing weight of cultural and personal history. Along the way, Buried [A Place], reclaims not just voice, but the body, not just knowledge, but raw knowing.