Refugee

by Pamela Uschuk

Taking the reader across our country through the varied landscapes of Colorado, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arizona, Refugee discusses the nature of seeking shelter. We are all refugees looking for a haven from whatever oppresses our lives. What constitutes a refugee is at the heart of the collection. Poems confront and explore xenophobia, sexism, gun violence, domestic violence, corporate greed, and their ties to environmental destruction and political and economic tyranny. An ovarian cancer survivor, the author also writes about her own courageous confrontation with death. These inspiring poems ultimately call for the reader to recognize the refugee condition as a human condition. They call for a change in consciousness in the forms of action and compassion. They call for the reader to thrive. Ranging from short lyric poems to narrative poems, this collection steeped in rich, sensual imagery draws inspiration and healing from the natural world. Truth lies in recognition of the interdependence of all life. Refugee is an odyssey to find grace and unity in a besieged and divided contemporary American society.

104 pages, Paperback

Published May 10, 2022

Reviews

[Jendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a subtle book, but we don't live in subtle times. For me, the poems in "Refugee" re-enact the emotional whiplash I experience when scrolling through social media, where uplifting images of nature and family intimacy are suddenly and repeatedly juxtaposed with the crude horrors of politics in the Trump era. Uschuk's skills are most on display when describing her Southwest environment in striking, precise imagery: "Corona of ice, the invisible moon/ blesses supplicant cacti offering thorns to heaven," she writes, or "Sun lifts machetes of light over the Rincons slicing through oleanders."

I did wish for equally creative language in the political references woven through these poems, which too often didn't rise above images familiar from the news: Trump's spray tan and small hands, children in cages, etc. I wanted to see these phenomena through new eyes, learn something new about them, but didn't always get that from the brief allusions in the poems.

The middle of the book pivots around a sequence of gorgeous, poignant poems about illness and healing, including Uschuk's journey through ovarian cancer, her brother's death from after-effects of Agent Orange, a beloved dog's surgery, and a friend's bereavement. These hopeful elegies, if I may coin that paradoxical phrase, seem perfectly placed in a book about healing the body politic. "Refugee" makes the case that our whole earth is one organism, fragile and beautiful, still able to be saved if we look at it clearly and tell the truth.

[Camille Dungy]

The first line of Pamela Uschuk’s extraordinary new book Refugee throws down the gauntlet to all who are guilty of less than full attention to the blood-drenched, war-torn contemporary world: “So you think you can live remote…” The poems grow not only from our collective suffering caused by political indifference and greed—war, gun violence, the plight of refugees incarcerated at the border—but also from grief at the loss of a sister and brother, and from her own excruciating fight against ovarian cancer. “What will she remember years from now…?” she asks of herself in “Pathology Report.” “The way she was gutted by strangers who scrubbed her abdomen / of any trace of woman. Her all-too-human grief.” Still, she concludes, “she is alive,” and wonders, “what kind of creature will she finally be?” The answer, in these poems, is that she becomes a creature full of passion for the beauty and astonishing profusion of nature, and full of strength and tenderness. Finally, these are wisdom poems, written by a woman at the height of her power. “The path through the labyrinth is forgiveness,” she writes in “Fox Sighting in Phoenix. “Each pain is a sword hacking open the self.”

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/article/14-...

[Lynn Watt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read all of Pam Uschuk’s books of poetry. This one is aptly titled “Refugee" as we are all in so many ways, "displaced" in the 21st c. Whether it’s cancerous cells within our bodies, displacement from our families because of the pandemic, extreme political discord, horrors of wars, or from a (beloved) natural world in danger, she tackles these difficult and broad topics in ways that become as you read them, very specific and personal. For her, wonder and hope are yet found in this world of refugees.

While kayaking in Florida, a manatee underneath the boat lifts her:

"I freeze,
when as gentle as a priestess offering incense to sky,
she lifts and I am
weightless as birdsong in a tangle of seagrass,
sharing the stunned light mermaids breathe."


Lynn Watt

[Donley Watt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry at its finest is written as if it matters, and Pamela Uschuk's latest book of poetry delivers that promise. For her words convey caring and compassion, strength in the presence of loss, and joy in the small, precious things that animate our lives. As we all are refugees in some sense of that word, Uschuk's poems present us with hope, using language that eloquently untangles the confusion and pessimism that we daily confront. "Refugee" is her gift to us all. Donley Watt

[Joseph Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out a review of Pamela Uschuk's awesome poetry collection, REFUGEE at https://josephrossnet.wordpress.com/2...