Dear Vulcan
Poet Laura Davenport’s latest chapbook draws inspiration from the Southern landscape.
As we close out National Poetry Month, we want to stress the importance of poetry in our everyday lives—not just during April. Savannah, Georgia, poet Laura Davenport invites readers to consider the ways in which unspoken expectations shape identities and relationships in her collection Dear Vulcan.
Located in settings that range from distinct places in the South, such as the Birmingham skyline or a Nashville liquor store, to the imagined landscape of “City without Women,” the poems in this book measure the distance between men and women.
Throughout its pages, Dear Vulcan captures an underlying tension experienced by a young woman coming of age amid the traditional patriarchy of the South, delineating connections between physical bodies, constructed selves and landscapes that allow them to flourish. Often beginning midconversation, Davenport’s poems draw in readers with precisely rendered details as they question assumptions about the lines between memory and reality—and between identity and intimacy.
Poems like “Why We Don’t Write about Kudzu” and “August Storm at Midnight” draw inspiration directly from the Southern landscape, a constant muse for poets around the world.
In case you missed any of our poems during National Poetry Month, you can read them here. Dear Vulcan is available as an e-book or paperback from LSU Press.
