A book of wild imagination and linguistic play, Nowhere begins by chronicling the pain that the speaker and her absent father endure during the years they are separated while he is in prison. The alternative universe the speaker builds in order to survive this complex loss and its aftermath sees her experimenting with her body to try to build connection, giving it away to careless and indifferent lovers as she dreams of consuming them in the search for a coherent self. But can the speaker voice her trauma and disjunction? Can anyone, or is suffering something that cannot be said, but only hinted at? Ultimately the book argues that the barest hour of suffering can be the source of immense creative power and energy, which is the speaker's highest form of consolation.

This brilliant debut collection offers cohesive trauma narratives and essential counter-narratives to addiction stories, and it consistently complicates the stories told by the world about so-called fatherless girls and the bodies of women.

About the Author
Katie Schmid is also the author of the chapbook forget me / hit me / let me drink great quantities of clear, evil liquor. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. A former Best New Poet and AWP Intro Journals award winner, she lives and writes in Lincoln, Nebraska, where she is a lecturer in English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.


Book Information
ISBN 9780826363077
Author Katie Schmid
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint University of New Mexico Press
Publisher University of New Mexico Press
Weight(grams) 333g