The Luck of Anhedonia (poetry collection)

My dissertation manuscript, The Luck of Anhedonia (TLoA), is a collection of poems driven by persona. The first section, “The Living,” tells the origin story of the speaker and Anhedonia, two figures who have escaped their difficult lives and abusive men in the Midwest. After meeting on talk radio, they plan to meet in the desert. It is a mystical desert where they coexist with women who come to them — both living and dead. The second section, “The Visitors,” contains poems that focus on those women who visit them in the desert. They are poems about women lost in history, women who are victims of a world that treats women harshly. Some poems are in the voices of the women the speaker and Anhedonia care for after they journey to the desert to find solace, protection, and comfort.