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The Body the Distance Traveled
Poems
Published by UNM Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
With a masterful use of prosody, ekphrasis, and sound, this collection shares a fragmented narrative that reflects the noisy, fractured world we live in.
The Body the Distance Traveled is told in three parts, all fragments of a narrative. The first part uses stories, classical tropes, and ekphrasis to uncover the resonant potential that resides in individual words. The second part explores complex family relationships by yoking together childhood trauma and the responsibility of caring for an elderly parent who may or may not be part of that trauma. In the third part, Kevorkian meditates on the grief of memory, using sound and fragment to disrupt the expectations of traditional narrative. These poems engage with history, art, and art history, as well as the ordinary, asserting that the lives we all live are made of what comes at us in pieces and waves, what’s remembered or known, physically experienced, and viscerally remembered.
The Body the Distance Traveled is told in three parts, all fragments of a narrative. The first part uses stories, classical tropes, and ekphrasis to uncover the resonant potential that resides in individual words. The second part explores complex family relationships by yoking together childhood trauma and the responsibility of caring for an elderly parent who may or may not be part of that trauma. In the third part, Kevorkian meditates on the grief of memory, using sound and fragment to disrupt the expectations of traditional narrative. These poems engage with history, art, and art history, as well as the ordinary, asserting that the lives we all live are made of what comes at us in pieces and waves, what’s remembered or known, physically experienced, and viscerally remembered.
Product Details
- Publisher: UNM Press (February 23, 2027)
- Length: 72 pages
- ISBN13: 9780826370945
Raves and Reviews
“Karen Kevorkian’s captivating The Body the Distance Traveled is a collection absolutely unto itself. The space she paints—and I use that verb intentionally—shapes surrealist details against a backdrop of cloudy wisps of mythic memory. Kevorkian’s is a voice of absolute distinction born at the crossroads of inquest and imagination. She writes: ‘what could an artist do but offer meticulous attention to wings / as if a real angel held still in the studio for the hours it took to make accountable / each feather.’ That accountability is her aesthetic, and I love her for it.”
– Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets
“Kevorkian’s lines and images are wonderfully elusive of grammar in ways that I find exciting and fresh. Words slam into each other, seeming to rise directly from within a highly intelligent mind at work on memory, politics, time travel, and the unsolvable problems of childhood and history. Her speakers’ voices shift in and out of time, ‘the past entering the present in whatever form.’ Line by line, poem by poem, this manuscript is a remarkable achievement. Karen Kevorkian is truly a gifted poet.”
– Kevin Prufer, author of The Fears
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