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| Susan Cossette-Eng (center), Development Director, Voices of September 11th and Found- ing Director Mary Fetchet and Frank Fetchet |
Returning to the Stamford
poetry scene since her last appearance at Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic program
in 2012, New Canaan resident Susan Cosette-Eng will read both favorites and new
material at Curley’s this Tuesday evening, including selections from Peggy
Sue Messed Up, her new collection currently
being shopped around to publishers (click here to read the titular piece).
Known for her semi-satirical,
feminist forays into the confounding conformity of growing up in the staid, “privilege
prisons” of such affluent enclaves as her own Darien, Susan (who names Sylvia Path, T.S. Eliot, Constantine Cavafy and The Beatles among her many creative influences) posts the full range of her work
through her blog, MusePalace, including this empathetic tribute to beloved
comedian/actor Robin Williams, who committed suicide last summer after a
lifetime struggling with depression:
God’s Comic
\
-for Robin Williams
These
are the days.
The big sad rolls in,
With the moon’s mud tide.
Thick fog –
Choking, rising
In a strangling surge.
If
I could wish you up
Out–
I
would.
If I could
Save you—
I
would take you with me.
To
Paris, or someplace lovely.
******
These are the days,
I am reminded over tea
How
we are perceived–
Rays of light,
Bits of sunshine.
Friends
Lovers
Mentors
While we fight
The dark inside, and no one no knows.
You stood on your head,
Made me laugh–
What happens,
When the big sad wins?
There
is no halftime show.
Susan also deals professionally with the pressures of upholding an external façade of normalcy while dealing
with protracted internal pain on a more public level in her new capacity as Development Director for Voices of
September 11th, a New Canaan-based non-profit whose services span
mental health, community resiliency/preparedness and long-term support for survivors,
victims’ loved ones and first responders impacted by 9/11, the Virginia-Tech
massacre and other episodes of domestic mass violence and terrorism.
Coming to her new role
from the New Canaan YMCA, where she last served as director of development, Susan
has personal ties to the collapse of the Twin Towers, having lost a former co-worker
in New York, around the time she started with the Y as Director of Marketing
and Communications. Find out more about Voices and its latest work at www.Voicesofseptember11.org.
A graduate of UConn at
Storrs, Susan is a recipient of the university’s Wallace Stevens Prize
for Poetry in 1985 and 1986. You can read more about her background at AuthorsDen.
