Virginiana

Abstract

Virginiana is a poetry collection that explores Virginia landscapes within the context of grief, history, and trauma. These poems exist at the intersection of physical pain and emotional pain. Among other topics, the poems examine the experience of living with three chronic health conditions. The speaker sees her physical pain and personal grief reflected in the scarred landscapes of Virginia. These poems excavate the collective trauma caused by mass tragedy, as well as individual trauma caused by suicide. They explore what it means to continue to live and make meaning despite the harrowing, shattering, and fragmentary experience of complicated grief. These poems are written through the lens of sorrow and investigate the experience of existing in a body with its particular gifts and limitations. Grief and trauma weigh heavily on the speaker, who finds the project of being alive alternatingly exhausting and exhilarating. And yet, despite their focus on anguish, these poems are not a white flag. Rather, they aim to examine history, race, disability, grief, mental illness, and invisible pain in an attempt to elucidate difficult subjects and understand these forces that otherwise torment and terrify.