I Eric America - Softcover

Diane Raptosh

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798988198550

Publisher: Etruscan Press, 2024

Synopsis

In language wild and restrained, opulent and precise, these sonnets make something lasting, even beautiful, from tragedy – personal and national. Diane Raptosh’s collection of sonnets, I Eric America, combines elements of family trauma (her brother Eric’s survival of a plane crash and subsequent paraplegia) with disturbances on the national stage. Equal parts origin story, myth, and song, the book unfolds from the premise that “America is the nation-expression of / a severely traumatized person”. Throughout their singing, the poems seek to heal, transmute and transform.

About this title

About the Author

Diane Raptosh’s fourth book of poetry, American Amnesiac, (Etruscan Press) was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Housatonic Book Award. The recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she served as the Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016), the highest literary honor in the state. In 2018 she received the Idaho Governor’s Arts Award in Excellence. A highly active ambassador for poetry, she has given poetry workshops everywhere from riverbanks to maximum security prisons. She teaches creative writing and runs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at The College of Idaho. Her most recent collection of poems, Human Directional, was released by Etruscan Press in 2016.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

[I want to name America my brother,]

I want to name America my brother,

since we all see that eric stashed in 

the navel of nation-state. I want the union 

to man an inner change of location, to shift 

from the seed of Eric meaning one, alone, 

unique, to its roots in long-time journey;

everlasting, eternity. I would like the place 

to navel-gaze just enough to note that

dogwood’s frail stateliness. To annotate

decency. To nightly simulcast grace. I’d like

the state to glide on its rims, scuffed and 

abraded, forging new rubrics of spine. I’d like

the nation to state out loud: All that rage—at last

—is what pain feels like when I air it in public.  

[America is the nation-expression of]

America is the nation-expression of 

a severely traumatized person. Which 

makes me a human hair trigger. I really am

made of my brother, caught between 

Jedi torso and nerve-wracked numbness

boothed in the lower half of the body. Yes,

we’re merely a swarm to thin before Musk 

and Bezos jet their glitz-pilgrims to Mars—

the Artemis lunar landing, host of a layover

hitched to the red trajectory. I fear these pretty  

much tetchy jottings will really tick off my hair.

Psst, Eric: Let us un-die. Let us din and naiad

ideas that flipper in Earth-joy. Ooh let me retire

from nation re-rigging until the ends of my name. 

[When I become dust, I want to Diane]

When I become dust, I want to Diane

to be human for Do not repeat where    

we were. I want it to shorthand how-to’s.

How to upend: First, we re-nature. I want it

to plug for the land while sizing up griefs

of the day. To show how to stand for the self

while penciling notes on the trim of the world:

Why it’s queer to feel cared for: It’s a fact about

life in America. I would like my own action

verb to bank and clearwing. I want to id

and lever a din that heaps insistence on us  

in the spore of its origin story. To have sung

as a sample person sheltering Earth. For you

to have oared these lines by the strobe of Venus.

Edition details

• Publisher: Etruscan Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798988198550
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 84