Amelia Earhart by Larry Beckett

A ghost-woman’s ruminations on the joys & injustices of her life fly through her memory:

Rhapsodic & reportorial by turns, Amelia Earhart sets the mythological image of the first famous female aviator against her own musings on the facts of her life. The result is an epic monologue that reveals not only Earhart but also Larry Beckett‘s genius for making words dance, for Amelia & for us.

–Alexandra Yurkovsky, poet, critic, author of Wanting

He lifts the wing of that old plane on the ground
so we can see the woman before she takes off.
As he tells us her story, I can feel her on the roof
of the hotel, arms outstretched to catch the updraft.

–Robin Rule, poet, author of Porch Language and Trailer for Rent

Larry Beckett, poet, writer, engages Amelia Earhart, pilot, flyer. Beckett has researched, meditated, mused. He shares his results here, gives us the goods. Using the first-person voice of Amelia herself, often ironic in tone, he makes it mesmerizing. Sea chants. Land chants. Air chants. Who was Amelia? What really happened? She is alive, still flying, imagined and remembered lyrically—seven lines at a time.

–Dan Barth, poet, writer, author of Fast Women Beautiful: Zen Beat Baseball Poems and The Day After Hank Williams’ Birthday