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In her first poetry collection, a chapbook about motherhood and identity, L.J. Sysko investigates the paradox presented by love. Accountability masquerades as confinement, hope wears an anxious mask, and attachment feels like a heavy yoke. Beginning with a new volcanic island hissing to hardness in the distance, Battledore sails from one exotically familiar locale to the next. With "you" at the helm, the poems chart interior territory, mapping the cracks formed by seismic identity shifts like giving birth, encountering post-partum depression, and maintaining a self. At times lighthearted and humorous, Battledore pokes fun at its own predicament. Using references as diverse as Charles Darwin and Candies heels or Elizabeth Bishop and Preparation H, Sysko presents an imagination circumnavigating the wild freedom within. Battledore’s poems have been published in Best New Poets, Ploughshares, and Amazon’s Day One.
About the author
L.J. Sysko is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in Best New Poets 2013, Ploughshares, Day One, Rattle, 5am, and other journals. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College, and she has been the recipient of both an Emerging Artist's grant and an Opportunity grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts; other honors include the Academy of American Poets' Jean Corrie Prize, Lafayette College's H. MacKnight Black Prize, and three awards from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Foundation. Proud to have her work appear as part of Finishing Line Press' New Women's Voices Series, Sysko teaches high school English and lives with her husband and two children. For more information, visit ljsysko.com.
