An explosive collection of poems which document the life as a daughter caring for her father who is a drug addict.
This explosive collection of poems documents life as a daughter trying to support her artist father who is overseas struggling with dementia and drug addiction during a pandemic. Interspersed with the frantic cycle of overdoses, escapes from care, disappearances and urgent international phone calls are moments of reflection on her father's artwork and her seaside surroundings.
'Traci O'Dea has written verse that complements her old man's visions like a tugboat pulling a freighter out to deep water'
- Rafael Alvarez, author of Orlo & Leini and writer from The Wire'Traci O'Dea's Restricted Movement is timely, stirring, and sharp as a knife. A pandemic book, an addiction story, and a love letter to a troubled father, it defies the odds by also being really fucking funny. If you needed any further proof that form lends force to feeling, here it is.'
- Matthew Buckley Smith, author of Midlife, winner of the Richard Wilbur Award, and host of the poetry podcast Sleerickets.'Unflinching in its portrait of filial devotion, Traci O'Dea's Restricted Movement is beautiful and funny. This collection of poems--both love letter and intimate diary--is so skillfully wrought that the lines often seem effortless--almost casual--and yet O'Dea's formal and emotional control is impeccable.'
- Joanna Pearson, author of Now You Know It All, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize.'This is a stunning work of art that layers harrowing narratives, acute social observations, and glorious moments of beauty, grit, and redemption-all impastoed until it is the truth itself that rises before us like paint bubbling out of a canvas. Beautiful.'
- Andre Bagoo, author of The Undiscovered Country'frank and deeply affecting, a vivid document of time out of joint.'
- Ana Sampson, editor of She Is FierceTraci O' Dea is a poetry editor for the literary journals Smartish Pace and MOKO: Caribbean Arts and Letters. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, Literary Matters, 32 Poems, The Jersey Evening Post and elsewhere. This collection is published with the support of ArtHouse Jersey.
Self taught visionary artist, Tommy O'Dea, uses as part of his recovery from addiction. He refers to himself as a 'glue artist', layering glues and epoxies, creating richly textured surfaces often augmented with acrylic paint, sea glass and glitter. He is Traci's father.