Madness and Retribution: Poems

Travel a picturesque and often harrowing road through these narrative poems to encounter the quiet survivors and overlooked places fallen through the cracks in the American Dream. Meet a battered wife wearing a celebratory dress to her husband's funeral ("The Red Dress") and a fed-up woman who shoots a complaining nonsmoker at Denny's ("Mother of Four"). With empathy for the human condition, Juliette Torrez captures the absurdity, hypocrisy, and ultimately the beauty of the places and people she has known.