2007.04.09: April 9, 2007: Headlines: COS - Niger: Writing - Niger: Poetry: Seattle Times: Niger RPCV Susan Rich writes "Cures Include Travel"

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Niger: Peace Corps Niger : Peace Corps Niger: Newest Stories: 2007.04.09: April 9, 2007: Headlines: COS - Niger: Writing - Niger: Poetry: Seattle Times: Niger RPCV Susan Rich writes "Cures Include Travel"

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-13-27.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.13.27) on Monday, May 21, 2007 - 6:14 am: Edit Post

Niger RPCV Susan Rich writes "Cures Include Travel"

Niger RPCV Susan Rich writes Cures Include Travel

Susan Rich has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, an electoral supervisor in Bosnia and a teacher at the University of Cape Town. She now lives in Seattle and teaches at Highline Community College. Her recent book, "Cures Include Travel" (White Pine Press, 99 pp., $14), from which "Mr. Saturday Night" is taken, draws on her itinerant experience.

Niger RPCV Susan Rich writes "Cures Include Travel"

Information on the poets and their books

[Excerpt]

Susan Rich has been a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, an electoral supervisor in Bosnia and a teacher at the University of Cape Town. She now lives in Seattle and teaches at Highline Community College. Her recent book, "Cures Include Travel" (White Pine Press, 99 pp., $14), from which "Mr. Saturday Night" is taken, draws on her itinerant experience.



Mr. Saturday Night

For my student, Khalid

This could be an American story: drugs, discos, even

the Somali nickname that clings to you like an out-of-date

aphrodisiac. Living by chance in a Kenyan city, a mother’s

rules flung across the lost luggage of border crossings,

her final dollars follow you: sixteen, exiled, on the ledge

of sanity. You slip through an open window

riding a breath of mixed fortune. Money lighting on

hands with a warlord’s stratagem until no one remains

rich enough to refuse you. Yes, American history.

Your daily regime of qaat dreams, as good a win as any.

Who will tell of the deep pleasure in tragedy? This

no waiting for tomorrow to bathe in the forbidden.

Yes—our red, white, and blue story. Now worlds

away, sponging up new nouns in a new country –

it’s undercut by the stench of an abandoned body

you try not to step on in the creosoled street.




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Headlines: April, 2007; Peace Corps Niger; Directory of Niger RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Niger RPCVs; Writing - Niger; Poetry; Washington; The Peace Corps Library; Peace Corps History; Bulletin Board; Recent Peace Corps News





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Story Source: Seattle Times

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Niger; Writing - Niger; Poetry

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