America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery

In America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery David Radavich launches his most ambitious expedition to date. Crossing continents and spanning centuries this sequence traces historical trajectories from the Age of Exploration to the present. Indeed we hear echoes of Whitman in its sweep and grandeur. Organized geographically sections recount the discovery of the New World and exploration of the American West as well as sojourns to the Arctic South America Asia and finally the Far East. Along the way we encounter persona poems speaking in the voices of adventurers conquistadors and survivors. This is a bold and expansive book challenging readers to re-conceive the ways that history is said to rhyme. --Professor Christian Knoeller author of Reimagining Environmental History America Abroad is an amazing achievement. David Radavich offers an entertaining history of the republic in light-footed poetry. Its a wonderful gift. There are heroes galore both male and female but Uncle Sam and his consort Ms. Liberty dominate the narrative: Smug calm and full of selfish drive he brushes off her protests. Feeling jilted she laments Were still not together. Their squabbles mirror those of the nation; if they were to divorce it would lose its soul. --Jean Grant author of The Burning Veil America Abroad is part adventure story and part history told in crisp narrative poems rich in searing imagery. In these poems David Radavich explores Americas complex history of discovery destruction and quest for power. With the keen eye of an historian and the heart and ear of a poet Radavich uses a myriad of voices from Ponce de Leon to Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty to explore Americas adventurism with clear-eyed honesty. These poems deliver on the promise that If you listen hard / in the end you will be changed. --Pat Riviere-Seel author of The Serial Killers Daughter David Radavichs America Abroad is vastly imaginative: pastiche; caprice; cameos by Ponce de Leon Coronado Sacajewea Leif Ericsson Betsy Ross as well as other historic luminaries; and orchestrated by a truncated nimble line with brilliant musical enjambment that puts me in mind of Robert Creeley. The language is wonderfully elastic accommodating witty--what an ear Radavich has--but also of epic vision Protean / beyond all reckoning as the speaker declares so aptly in the poem Shape-Shifter. And indeed these poems do shape-sift holographic not only in their stunning wordplay but in their vision and wry social commentary. This is a very fine volume of poems. --Joseph Bathanti former Poet Laureate of North Carolina