3rd Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2022
The poems in Listening in the Dark center on the theme of growing up with an unidentified hearing loss that progressively became much worse. In her mid-20s, Suzy Harris learned the diagnosis and started wearing hearing aids. In her mid-60s, after losing most of her hearing in both ears, she received her first cochlear implant, and then a second one, which required learning to hear again.
Early Praise:
"I have seldom encountered a series of poems so closely linked and connected as a whole. This chapbook tenderly addresses the poet's lifelong hearing loss with a surprising precision of language, starting at the very beginning of life and reimagining that time of growing up with two languages, / one that is silence. No doubt these tender poems will help many readers to feel less alone as they navigate their own worlds of memory, loss, and resilience."-James Crews, contest judge, poet, editor of How to Love the World
-Willa Schneberg, LCSW, recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry
-Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita