Cures Include Travel [Paperback]

Susan Rich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

“‘These begonias have come a long way,’ writes Susan Rich in a marvelous poem called ‘Everyone in Bosnia Loves Begonias,’ and so has she! I admired her talent years ago, and this book makes it clear that she has grown into a mature and accomplished poet.”—Linda Pastan

A dynamic new collection by the winner of the PEN West Poetry Award. Rich’s poetry tracks the globe, drawing us into the lives of ordinary people on nearly every continent.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"What is poetry in wartime?" News anchors around the world apologize for showing explicit footage, but, as one Al Jazeera broadcaster says, "The world should know the truth." Rich has seen more of the world than most of us, and her poems bring back a truth we are unlikely to encounter anywhere else. As an election supervisor in Bosnia, a Fulbright fellow in South Africa, and a human rights trainer in Gaza, she has witnessed the horrors of war and seen ravaged nations and their scarred people. "What saved me was geography," she says, referring you to her childhood and her father's attentions. It is our turn now, and she shows us that there is much more to the world than most of us know: the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, a woman endlessly sweeping the wind-blown Sahara from her room, the women of Kismayo, who protest for peace by baring their breasts: "Simply the women/ of the town telling their men// to take action, to do something/ equally bold." We see maps and drag our fingers along spinning globes, but we are rarely aware of all the places we have left our fingerprints. Rich is a traveler and an observant one at that, with a keen attention to detail and a wonderful ear for the sounds and rhythms of place that make these lyric poems a delight. Highly recommended.-Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia.
Copyright © 2007 Library Journal.

About the Author

Susan Rich is a poet and Fulbright Fellow. She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle, WA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: White Pine Press (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893996751
• ISBN-13: 978-1893996755
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,408,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan Rich grew up in Massachusetts where she spent most of her childhood dreaming of other worlds. As soon as she could, she left home and began wandering. Sarajevo, Cape Town, and Gaza City are some of the places her travels took her. THE CARTOGRAPHER'S TONGUE includes a sequence of poems from her time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa and as an Electoral Supervisor participating in the first national elections in Bosnia. The Cartographer's Tongue won the PEN Award for Poetry as well as the Peace Corps Writers Award. Her second book, CURES INCLUDE TRAVEL, continues with poems of South Africa and Somalia juxtaposed with observations of her home geography of Seattle. Her poems have appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Magazine, Poetry International and Witness. She teaches in the Antioch MFA program and at Highline Community College in the Seattle area.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poems that embrace the larger world, September 16, 2006

By 

Kathleen Flenniken (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cures Include Travel (Paperback)

Read Cures Include Travel at least twice--the first time to dwell in the house of each surprising and gloriously musical poem, the second time to let go and travel. In a voice by turns wistful, bemused, sometimes grieving, sometimes resolute or playful, Susan Rich holds the whole world in her imagination, a rare gift in an age of self-absorption. In poems like "Everyone in Bosnia Loves Begonias," "Fissure" (where the scene is South Africa), and "The Women of Kismayo," she pulls the reader into the larger, troubled but irresistible world. The harrowing poem "Mohamud at the Mosque" opens our eyes to life in this America, and is one of the best 9/11 poems I've read. Rich's observance of everyday life, the bittersweet poems for her mother, and the sensual, hungry-making love poems ("What the Baker Wants" should not be read alone or too far from a dessert tray), give this voice a body and a past and make all the poems in this beautiful collection resonate as real life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection to broaden your world, November 10, 2006

By 

reader - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cures Include Travel (Paperback)

I like books that take me someplace I've never been before. Susan Rich's Cures Include Travel takes me to many such places--Somalia, Bosnia, South Africa, Ireland, Iraq. Rich has traveled to and worked in many troubled parts of the world. Her poems capture these places with their landscape, customs, and tribulations. Again and again, Rich expresses compassion for people and opposition to all forms of oppression. Using stunning images, she evokes the sounds, smells, and colors of each location. She brings the world alive with flowers--hibiscus, hydrangeas, begonias, amaranth, blue oleander. And she stimulates taste buds with culinary delights--blueberry scones, rum babas, chocolate roulade. In "What the Baker Wants," one of my favorite poems, she asks, "Oh, what does the tongue know/ that our hearts cannot? / Tiramisu and lemon tarts." Interspersed among the poems of global concerns are more personal ones of romantic relationships and the pain of a mother's death from cancer. In these more personal poems, food is again used to create image and evoke emotion. In another of my favorites, "A Poem for Will, Baking," Rich catalogs the confections Will bakes to escape the pain of grief, then ends: "...he creates the most fragile / of confections: madelines / and pinwheels, pomegranate crisps / and blue florentines; / each crumb to reincarnate / a woman--a savoring / of what the living once could bring." Rich conveys her love for the places and people of this troubled world and brings that world into sharp focus with the skill of a photographer or a painter. The result is an outstanding collection of poetry.