Wild in the Plaza of Memory

In Wild in the Plaza of Memory, Pamela Uschuk creates a collective narrative of the human experience in a stunning portrayal of memory in its entirety, through both small, intimate moments from her speaker’s life and shared communal experiences. –Tawnysha Greene, gentlyread.wordpress.com

Pamela Uschuk . . . is one of those poets who can literally write about anything and find a new twist. . . . Some of these works are intensely autobiographical, yes. But others are deeply philosophical. . . . In sum, Wild is a perfectly controlled work of art. —Tucson Weekly (June 28, 2012)

The 95 pages of poetry in Wild in the Plaza of Memory is a fugue of love, politics and nature, all growing from one another, the three strands crackling with electricity where they touch. . . . These are poems to help us become most like ourselves. –www.ConnotationPress.com

These poems are matrices of earth creatures, winds, suns and the need to replace travesty with justice. Each is aflutter with bird song and skeleton dance. The book is a mountain climb to vision. We look out over the ruin, the celebration. Wild in the Plaza of Memory is Uschuk’s best collection thus far. –Joy Harjo, author, How We Became Human New and Selected Poems: 1975 – 2001

Uschuk is a recipient of an American Book Award for poetry, and deservedly so, but at ninety-seven pages, Wild in the Plaza of Memory is a long poetry collection, and the poems within are heady stuff. I will reread the book and treasure the poems a few at a time. I hope I can convince other readers to do the same. –www.ContraryMagazine.com

Uschuk’s poems build bridges between the sacred and the fallen. In this way, her work offers hope of transcendence. To walk with this poet along the paths her mind takes is pure joy. To listen to the hymn-like language she uses is a form of receiving the sacred wafer of a linguistic communion. —RATTLE (August 2012)