Susan Beem

A retired physician from Southern California who was caught up in poetry only ten years ago. She has poems published in Verdad, Turtle Quarterly, Pearl, Ekphrasis, Song of the San Joaquin, Bank Heavy Press and in two themed anthologies: The Tangled Bank and Hot Summer Nights. Her poem “Sonnet in the Rubble” was originally written as a palimpsest, a response to a specific photo versus the near impossibility of writing about a disaster as large as the tsunami in Japan. When reading the poem, it has been most effective layering three voices, one reading the sonnet, and others reading the random words presented above/below/around the sonnet. Her thanks go to Medusa’s Laugh for the opportunity for this artistic conceptualization of her work.