Between Us, There is a Great Gulf Fixed

Abstract

This is a collection of poems that explores different levels of loss: individual, communal, and ecological. As such, this is a collection about uncrossable distances. The speakers in these poems (who range from fisherman to executive, from drag queen to grieving daughter) are looking out over distances that transcend language: the distance between man and animal, the distance between rich and poor, and the distance between the living and the dead. In the narrative tradition of poets like Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hass, Natasha Trethewey, Sharon Olds, and Langston Hughes, this collection seeks to eulogize and preserve the fragile landscape of the Gulf Coast, the strained queer communities living on its fringes, and a father lost between the two. This collection is occupied by a multitude of characters and speakers, allowing for a communal expression of grief: in “Love Letters,” the speaker’s relationship is echoed by the relationship between close friends and Earth writers Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, in “Photograph: Jody Ford and Her Client, Birmingham, AL 1977,” a trans woman beloved by her southern community is mourned by a speaker with an almost vengeful gaze, and in “Alabama Shipwright I” a boat repairman who moonlights as a drag queen deals with the loss of his parent’s presence and support. The inclusion of these voices allows this collection to explore the self in a way that acknowledges community. This collection relies on sound, image, and narrative to express both personal grief and the unimaginable breadth of eco-grief: a practice in scale, in distances, and in unnavigable gulfs.