Maureen Thorson - My Resignation

Published 2014. Paperback, 78pp, 8.5x5.5ins
ISBN 978-1-84861-344-7 [Download a PDF sampler from this book here.]

How does one overcome the thought that "past failures dictate future performance"? Maureen Thorson's second book of poetry follows a couple as they put their separate histories behind them and create a new life together. In My Resignation , fragments of overheard dialogue, close observations of the changing seasons, and a wry sense of humor blend to narrate the transformation of doubts into certainties, as past heartbreak is set aside with this motto: "Proceed with caution, but always proceed."

"In My Resignation , Maureen Thorson's poems sing, wink, and aren't afraid to throw an elbow. When was the last time you read a smart, acute study of what happens when two adults combine households? We follow a speaker, recovering from past heartbreak, who is 'Vulnerable but game. / Curious to thrive.' Yet she cannot help but put what goes said and unsaid in constant, at times lacerating dialogue. You'll root for her journey. Hell, you'll root for 'a pair of sparrows / doing the hoochie on the stoop.' This is fresh, vibrant, necessary poetry, the stuff of real life ripened with wordplay and stunning imagery. I love this collection."
—Sandra Beasley (author of I Was the Jukebox )

"With deft wit and linguistic dexterity, Maureen Thorson unfolds the intricate circadian rhythms of a contemporary adult relationship in My Resignation — one unmarred by the dramas of former toxic zombie loves, but nevertheless filled with the real terrors of learning to trust. Through a series of lovely and quirky poems garnished with crisp snippets of dialogue, brisk flickers of glittery detail, and whimsied twists of vocabulary this unfolding becomes an uncoaxing, a gentle thriving — a flourishing of figs, heirloom beans in pots, and gaga azaleas — in which the speaker resigns herself to both constancy and uncertainty, to no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop, to hornswaggle and anomaly, to banana popsicles, and to 'getting cozy with the sky.'"

—Lee Ann Roripaugh (Author of On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year )

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