Join poet Sue Scavo and author of Desert Cabal, Amy Irvine, in conversation about Sue’s debut book of poems, Buried [A Place], one woman’s journey through the shadows of trauma, relationship and story. 

Scavo asks: What do we do when we are lost? Who do we turn to for help on our journey? When does a teacher, a mentor, a brother, a father, no matter how seemingly beloved, become something else? When do we realize the stories we have been told are, at their root, stories against – the body, the feminine, even the planet itself? Irvine responds: this catastrophic, conflict-ridden era is no Anthropocene, but rather the Patrescene. Life has been shaped not by “humans” but by a patriarchy of greed, power, fear and ultimately violence against the feminine and the planet. 

About Buried [A Place], Irvine writes: Never have I seen the female form so unearthed — not just the body — but the sound of its voice, the shape of its language. As Buried resurrects, the Father’s house is upended. A house built and maintained by enslaved bodies, sourced from an exploited earth. A house that is now on fire. There is no tongue as deft as Sue Scavo’s to both name the crimes of the patriarchs who lived as gods and to indict her own willingness to be their supplicant. Until they point downward, to Hell, as if the inferno weren’t right here and now. The lie of transcendence is, in truth, the molten core of violence. In a voice all atrium and ventricle, Scavo renounces the descent, reclaims what has been interred. The body as sacred topography.

Scavo will also read and sign books afterwards.