When The Big Sad Wins

Susan Cossette-Eng (center), Development
Director, Voices of September 11^th 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.

August 15, 2014 by musepalace

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 11^th, 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.