Virtual Poetry Reading: J. C. Todd and Beyond Repair

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=c2VzQWMrWnN6a3oxR3ZvaVVEWS93UT09

Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: 704102

J. C. Todd’s Beyond Repair bears vivid witness to the struggles for healing, both small- and large-scale, in global hotspots of conflict. With precisely crafted poems, imbued with empathy and grace, Todd examines those who must continue with daily life amidst horror and chaos. This fierce and moving collection is a special honoree for the 2019 Able Muse Book Award.

Beyond Repair ($19.95, Able Muse Press, 978-1773490595) is woven of war and aftermath. Survival lives in the blood-wit of each turn in this wrought collection, singing and daring the heart awake. This voice is refined to an edge. . . . Leaps and associations feel calibrated as the reader finds oneself sizing up the angle of heart and head, becoming part of the accumulative turns—an accord of people, voices, places, times—and we confront what war does to one who has a capacity for grace.  Yusef Komunyakaa, Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth

Bearing unflinching witness to upheaval across borders and time, places where “nothing / is left, not even names,” Todd’s poems give voice to the oppressed and missing, asking “Without a speaker language what is it.” Compassionate, questioning, she remains keenly aware of the challenges of representation, acknowledging how “beyond the cropped shot” the “background resists / insists.” . . . . J. C. Todd’s unforgettable voices and visions will leave you transformed forever.  Dilruba Ahmed, Bring Now the Angels

In these powerful, impassioned poems of war’s devastation, what counts is . . . bodies and minds caught in modern warfare’s mutilating gears. Eloquent in witness, with searing exactitude, J. C. Todd restores life’s meaning—always war’s first casualty. Filling the acronym PTS with substance—“memory a carnivore ravening the entrails / of castaway reason”—she takes us inside those who’ve served, the poet as faithfully vigilant as the Air Force doctor charged with care, even of those damaged “beyond repair.”  Eleanor Wilner, Before Our Eyes