SUE SCAVO, born [in the middle] in Cincinnati, Ohio, has lived most of her life at one edge [California] or another [New England]. Her work has been published in numerous publications including Poet Lore, Blue Heron Review, Aster(ix), Burning House Press, Literary Mama, Panolopy and others; and in anthologies, including What Have You Lost? ed. Naomi Shihab Nye (Harper Collins). She received her MFA from New England College and was awarded a writer’s residency then became a staff artist at The Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. Sue is co-editor/co-founder of deLuge Literary and Arts Journal and is a Dreamwork Teacher/Practitioner who has taught/presented internationally at conferences/venues such as Esalen Institute, Kripalu Center, Breitenbush Retreat Center, The Rowe Center, Hollyhock and the International Association for the Study of Dreams.
![Buried [A Place] by Sue Scavo](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55143381e4b084be0a42613a/1647030985357-OBL7WKN07KCI8975V5Z1/SCAVO_COVER+01-04-22.jpg)
Buried [A Place] tracks a woman’s journey, through the shadowy realm of story, relationship, and trauma, in a haunting and challenging re-imagining of Dante’s Inferno. An odyssey that resurrects the self and the feminine from the crushing weight of cultural and personal history, while raising the question of self in relation and correlation to other.
Sample Poem
Canto 1: [in] [half] / [between] [among]
In the middle of being lost, you have to understand — I prayed for a straight path, a true path, a way-through path. In my heart, a remembrance of song forgotten. Just remembrance remembered. You have to understand, I was searching [desperate] for path, as if I [anyone] could find a straight-through, a switch-back, a new way — as if there is arrival — an anywhere where song breaks. I knew there was song. I kept walking as if I could. I was utterly lost. You must understand, utterly. I shiver with it now [as then] how even as it dawned in me [my lostness, this cleaved], I prowled, scrambled, clawed. How shadows formed around me like animals, like dream, how ruthless, ravenous, teeth flash, growl and pounce. My own growl back, [such wildness] frightening. You must understand, how frightening, how driven. How hunted and haunted, between felt and feeling. The path, even tangled, broken. There became no way.
Until, from shadows, shadowed, one formed. Praise to one who would tell me, I am sent to guide you. Praise to one who will say, You cannot face feral. Praise to one who says, There is another way. I was ready to believe any story any voice unpacked, blinding my darkness. It did not matter the story offered, just the fact of a different story, just that there was a way. I would call anyone master, guide, teacher drugged as I was by shattered and tangled. Lead on, lead on — anything, any place, better than here.