Somerset

Somerset is an elegy for the Kensington section of Philadelphia in which the author was raised. Using a variety of styles and forms, it remembers people and cultures struggling to survive in the aftermath of deindustrialization and, now, an opioid epidemic. It is also a study in how our past continually informs our present, how we never fully leave those places in which our younger selves were formed. Somerset bears witness to racism, poverty, violent crime, and drug use, but also finds forgiveness, thankfulness, and love.