Master Suffering - by CM Burroughs (Paperback)

About the Book

The bodies of this book are supplicant yet seething-they want nothing more than to survive... but illness is one of the masters of this book.... The female bodies of Master Suffering want power; power to control and to correct the suffering they both witness and withstand.

Book Synopsis

This book is full of the questions and uncomfortable uncertainties that grief and the body bring; it is also full of speakers who are determined, and then unsure. The female bodies of Master Suffering want power to survive; they want to control and to correct the suffering they witness and withstand. But wanting can lead to suffering, too, and make speakers like Burroughs ask: "Why / should I have wanted so much / as to threaten my being?"

Review Quotes

"CM Burroughs's Master Suffering is transcendent... a book-length conjuring to counter grief's entropy. It is a pulsing utterance providing solace in the dark."

--Simone Muench

"A striking, brave, and stunning book. I love Burroughs's poems and I love Master Suffering. It's not easy to make poems like these, and they are important." --Sean Singer

"Master Suffering: a directive? Or a direct address? CM Burroughs throws us off-balance before we've opened the cover of her dynamic new collection, and continues to blow us away, moving us further and more deeply with each turn of the page."

--Evie Shockley