Description

Chamber after Chamber is about what fractures, fixes, and refills the hearts of two girls as they grow into women. A loose narrative in three sections, the poems follow a speaker and her cousin through their hardscrabble, backwoods childhood to their separation—both physical and emotional—as adults. From the make-believe apocalypses and cut-and-paste valentines of elementary school to the stadium-seating classrooms and multiplexes of southern China, our speaker tries to leave the shame and dysfunction of her family behind. In China, she begins to see America—and herself—clearly for the first time, and in doing so discovers that both her cousin and her country are inextricably woven into

[her body] part             that never sleeps            the blood
and chambered meat      that’s like a rock squeezed
in a fist             rapping its knuckles
on the sweet door             of the body.

About the Author

Born and raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, SAARA MYRENE RAAPPANA served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Southern China before moving to southwest Minnesota. Author of two chapbooks, she has published poems in journals and anthologies. She has received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference.

Praise For…

“Saara Myrene Raappana's poetry embodies a vast and transcendent array of subtle artfulness in the creative application of metered verse, exceeding any modern poet whose work I've encountered.”—Gordon Kippola

“With invigorating strength and song, this gorgeous first book shows us that we are animals—hungry, driven, crafty, tender, and violent, we surprise ourselves. Saara Myrene Raappanna transmits to readers the textures of land, lake, and sky: ‘A blizzard switched the ground / for clouds and made the county blind,’ begins ‘Elegy with Lake Effect.’ Chamber after Chamber is alive with thunder, stinging insects, mud, animal blood, and human sweat; the electric influence of Lake Superior is felt throughout. This cunning, graceful speaker elucidates one of life’s most dazzling contradictions: that the heart—'the part that never sleeps’—is at once spirit and flesh, ‘light’ and ‘meat’.”—Emily Hunt, author of Company