Far from Atlantis: Poems

by Raymond Luczak

In Far from Atlantis , Raymond Luczak makes use of traditional poetic forms to tell the stories of two vastly different the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which often looks like an island on the map, and the fabled island of Atlantis. The poems in this collection are rooted in the natural world, with the power of water as a means for escaping the cruelty and tedium of an ableist society. While recounting his troubled childhood as the only deaf person in a large hearing family, Luczak aligns himself with mythological, monstrous, and superhuman beings who, like him, exist on the margins. The narratives invoked and the worlds created in these poems are both autoethnographic and speculative, and include figures lost to history like Lucy Frances Fitzhigh Hooe and Frances Peterson, along with 1970s pop culture icons like the Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman.

104 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2023

Reviews

[Ellisa]

This book was a bit challenging for me, but an important read. Luczak writes about his youth as the only deaf child in a hearing family in a small town in the UP. He likens his marginalized experiences to those of heroes of his youth (like the Hulk or Wonder Woman). He also draws parallels between his life to the stories of Atlantis and the Greek/Roman pantheon, and between his shrinking (disappearing?) hometown of Ironwood and the lost city of Atlantis.
I love that he found solace in reading and that he found sanctuary in the library and St Vincent De Paul - the local thrift store.