Unsymmetrical Body - Paperback

by Jennifer R. Edwards (Author)

Unsymmetrical Body (FLP, 2022) is a full-length poetry collection including free verse and prose poems that explore themes such as communication, disability, motherhood, place, memory, divorce, grief, relationships and humility with honesty. They explore communication's many modes: the huge and minute verbalizations, silences, actions and images that surround us. Also, how language can be contradictory, indecisive, shifty considering perspectives, and sometimes inadequate for expressing grief and love. Poems circle back to want: of sustaining relationships, recovery in the face of divorce and trauma, the richness friendships and family offer, solitude necessary for survival. Poems explore an aching appreciation for the people and places of the past. Poems also hint at profound hope and joy, an anxious trying, the simple everyday acceptance of an aging, unsymmetrical body and unsymmetrical life different than anticipated but nonetheless full with connections to others and the environment. Poems explore the stability, feigned security, and limitations of small towns. They chronicle quiet moments like exploring the woods, cleaning out the garage, simple routines, and work as a speech-language pathologist with adults and children. They aren't shy about the random, buzzing "mommy moments" like overreactions, searching for children in crowds, and recognizing limitations.