Description
Mama Amazonica is set in a psychiatric ward and in the Amazon rainforest, an asylum for animals on the brink of extinction. It reveals the story of Pascale Petit’s mentally ill mother and the consequences of abuse. The mother transforms into a giant Victoria amazonica waterlily, and a bestiary of untameable creatures – a jaguar girl, a wolverine, a hummingbird – as she marries her rapist and gives birth to his children. From heartbreaking trauma, there emerge luxuriant and tender portraits of a woman battling for survival, in poems that echo the plight of others under duress, and of our companion species. Petit does not flinch from the violence but offers hope by celebrating the beauty of the wild, whether in the mind or the natural world.
Pascale read and ran a workshop at our second Verve Festival in 2018 and it was wonderful to have her with us!
Winner of The Laurel Prize 2020 / Winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2018
Price £9.95
ISBN: 9781780372945
Date: 28th September 2017
Format: Paperback
Extent: 112 pp
POETRY
