Single Lens Reflex - Couverture souple

Griffin, Brian

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1604542527 ISBN 13 : 9781604542523

Editeur : Iris Press, 2024

Synopsis

On July 27, 2008, a man pulled a sawed-off shotgun from a guitar case and fired randomly into a crowded sanctuary during a youth-led worship service at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, where the Brian Griffin was director of Religious Education programming. The worship service was intended to be a production of the play Annie, Jr. produced by children of the church, under the tutelage of our Director of Music. Instead, just as a child spoke the opening words of the play, a man who hates liberalism opened fire. Two people were fatally wounded and seven others were also shot before church members wrestled the man to the ground, about five seconds after he opened fire. He got off three shots. After he was subdued, there were 73 unfired shotgun shells scattered across the floor. About one-hundred children and teens, many of them in his Religious Education program, witnessed this bloody scene. Some of the children were splattered with blood. One of the dead was the author's close friend who died in Sunday light after shielding others with his body.

Many of the poems attempt to replicate some sense of the immediate horror and dissociation of trauma that that the author experienced as he watched things unfold in real time. Those constitute the first section, "Lens." Others, in the "Mirror" section, are reflections on the event and what it might mean, filtered through his anxiety and traumatic memories. Still others are an exploration of ideas of healing and renewal ("Image") to the extent that he has found such things to be possible.

The author's intent throughout is to reflect honestly on his experience. He wants to approximate, for the reader, how mass murder disconnects and in other ways reconnects its survivors to and from the quotidian. He shows the reader what happened, and to do so in a way that simply telling the story cannot-to guide the reader through a facsimile of trauma. These are not "therapy" poems. These are attempts to share a glimpse into raw, hard horror, and the long struggle that ensues.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Brian Griffin holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. His fiction, poetry and essays have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, and his collection Sparkman in the Sky and Other Stories was chosen by Barry Hannah to receive the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Single Lens Reflex was selected as a finalist for the National Poetry Series' 2018 competition. He has taught writing at The University of Virginia, Pellissippi State Community College, and the University of Tennessee. He is former Director of Lifespan Religious Education at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Iris Press
• Date d'édition: 2024
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1604542527
• ISBN 13: 9781604542523
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 102
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible