Devereux Fortuna

Note: The italicized line in the first poem has been taken from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Method of Nature.” In addition, Emerson writes of “the amber of memory,” and of studying midnight, in his essay “Love.” The poem that begins [My depression worsened as I] is indebted to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark,” in which Georgiana feels her environment to be "oppressively close," and to Susan Howe’s The Midnight. I owe immeasurable gratitude to Michael D. Snediker for his guidance on these poems, and for his teachings on the named texts, which have informed and inspired this sequence.

Devereux Fortuna is a writer and artist, currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston. Devereux is a poetry editor for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts and teaches at UH. Visual art and writing can be found at Waxwing Magazine, American Chordata, Triangle House Review, and elsewhere.