Restricted Movement

by Traci O'Dea, Tommy O'Dea (Illustrator)

Overview

This explosive collection of poems documents twelve months during the pandemic as Traci O'Dea, living in the Channel Islands, supports her artist father who is overseas in Baltimore struggling with dementia and drug addiction.

Interspersed with the frantic cycle of overdoses, escapes from care, disappearances, and international phone calls are moments of reflection on her father's artwork and her seaside surroundings.

The collection’s structure fluctuates between established poetic forms, loosely iambic letters, and blank verse. In addition to Traci’s poems, the book includes 24 paintings by her father, outsider artist Tommy O’Dea.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910895528
Publisher:	Scotland Street Press
Publication date:	03/01/2022
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Traci O' Dea earned an MA and MFA from Johns Hopkins University. She is a poetry editor for the literary journals Smartish Pace and MOKO: Caribbean Arts and Letters. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, Literary Matters, 32 Poems, The Jersey Evening Post, and elsewhere. This collection is published with the support of ArtHouse Jersey.

Self-taught visionary artist Tommy O'Dea uses as part of his recovery from addiction. He refers to himself as a "glue artist," layering glues and epoxies, creating richly textured surfaces often augmented with acrylic paint, sea glass, and glitter. He is Traci's father. He lives in Baltimore.

Read an Excerpt

Restricted Movement

No order tells my dad what he can’t do.
You’d think he’d be the one most used to it,
but prison didn’t break him, only made
him value freedom more. He disappears
for days, to prove the laws do not apply
to him. Each time, my heart sours, afizz
like blue-green algae film on stagnant pond.

Neighbours ask if he’s okay. ‘He’s fine,’
I lie, or maybe it’s a prayer. I try
to recollect what it was like before,
what I worried about. Earlier still,
my whole childhood he spent in jail. I slept
just fine back then. I never dreamt of him.
You’d think I’d be the one most used to it.

Table of Contents

Restricted Movement 1

Two Hours of Exercise 2

Triolet 5

First Month of Quarantine 6

Found Poem: First Kiss 7

Dear Dad 10

Coming Around 14

My Father's Self-Portrait 15

Dream Journal: Hung Up 16

Dream Journal: Rollercoaster 17

Dream Journal: Waterscapes 18

Dear Dad 22

Tarot 26

Shakespeare Street 27

Airport Hotel 29

Airsick, Flying Solo 30

Dear Dad 35

Testing 38

Baltimore 40

To the Activists 41

Suburban Quarantine 42

Dear Dad 47

Flowers of Isolation 50

Wild Iris 53

The Blue Lady 54

Banned 55

Dear Dad 60

Substitution: Pandemic/Occupation 64

Of the Mouth and Lungs 65

At the Sculpture Garden 66

Dear Dad 68

Reactions Speak Louder 72

Photograph of a Woman Looking at His Jellyfish 74

Recrudescence 75

Dear Dad 78

Our Neighbour Put Summer out with the Trash 82

Echocardiogram 83

Red Pineapple 84

Green Island 85

Dear Dad 89

Self-Isolation 92

Passenger Side 94

Bones 95

Dear Dad 99