| Summary: | MAPS OF EXODUS is a poetry collection thematically unified through recurring images of wings, flight, maps, and emotional or geographic dislocation. These images emerge as interpretations of various psychological and physical mediums of escape, often signifying aspects of the archetypal journey.
Influenced by Louise Glück's Wild Iris and Emily Dickinson's collected works, the poems often utilize language compressed to maximize emotional and thematic impact in spare lyrical poems. At other times the poems expand in language and form to Barbara Hamby's bountiful proportions and Theodore Roethke's vegetative abundance.
The collection interweaves poems that explore the breakdown of family structures, the grieving process through recurrent pregnancy loss, domestic confusion, and a failed marriage. The latter sections shift toward poems that communicate redemption and consolation through travel, the natural world, and new relationships. Each section is interwoven with garden, greenhouse, and nature imagery to emphasize the ongoing search for renewal and regeneration.
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