Traversals

what do you do, now, in the aftermath of forever? in the postscript your bleeding hands can barely write? walk on, my child, and fall like a star. for it is the only way you too will be reborn.

TRAVERSALS is a poetry & prose collection about love and loss, wildness and bewilderment, resiliency and restlessness. The beauty in cracking open, the beauty in discovery and rediscovery, the beauty in trusting the journey. It's about the people who come in and out of our lives - the ghosts we are haunted by and the ghosts we become to others.. And how to navigate the world, and the rest of our lives, in their alternating presence or absence.

It's the near-chronological and achingly honest retelling of Queens, NYC-born writer/poet Audrey Dimola's life from Fall 2011 to present, catalyzed that season by the passing of a loved one, the dissolution of a long-term relationship, a shifting career, a kaleidoscopic sense and loss of identity, and, of course, crossing paths with the gorgeously explosive muse that would strike the broad arc of the book - and all the moments in between.

It's a love letter to all those moments we will never see again. To falling, and falling again. An exploration through both the flames and the ashes of "the burning architecture of the heart."

PRAISE FOR TRAVERSALS

"...a heartrending journey bursting into redemption." -joan willette, writer & educator

"You're a warrior of light and a beacon of strength for what words can do. Truly you are a force. One candle can fill a dark room. But a star..." -brandon perdomo, curator, musician & photographer

"TRAVERSALS is a cracking open that always points to the immutable love that's inside all human experience. Audrey Dimola's poems are a guide to finding that and reminding us what is always underneath. This is a book of poetry that you will turn to, again and again, like a friend along the way." -valerie g. keane, writer & founder of poetry & coffee

"Audrey Dimola is the personification of creativity, talent and light. The book is no doubt a reflection of the energy and light Audrey emits, and reads fluidly and vulnerably. It is an embodiment of fireworks depicted on paper - words exploding and erupting with each turn of the page. TRAVERSALS is both empowering and moving." -sana hussain, writer & managing editor of give me astoria

"the backbone of this book is a celebration of the knowing + the unknowing in one life + heart. of memories + freedom. a call to those warriors we meet on the paths we take who bring us light. that stranger who becomes a lover who becomes a ghost. the one who leaves an imprint in our desert for the rest of time like the eroding of rock turned river. the ghosts of our past, of ourselves, of promises long broken. and what we choose to do with these ghosts..." -nick neon, film + music video director, screenwriter & creative director

"Audrey = magic. Every day. Get the book - it's a stunner." -anne born, author

if you can't move, let the breath move..
if you can't be the ship, be the oar.
if you can't be the oar, be the compass.
if you can't be the compass, be the slightest stirring
in the voyager's heart that told him -
i will not waste this day like all the others.
if you can't be the voyager, be the faintest flickering
of the arrow magnetized towards whatever is greater -
whatever you can see in that last moment,
with your eyes widened and the water in your lungs -
that suddenly makes you forget how to drown...