Planting Onions

A hybrid work of docupoetics exploring a father/daughter relationship by way of found letters 70+ years after the Korean War. It is a book of searching that ignores boundaries of time, space and physical life. Its questions prick at a new understanding for a grown daughter who tries to reach her father and her true self by way of her poetry and responses to her fathers letters through delayed letters of her own. "Mary Peterson' s Planting Onions offers readers a unique collage of letter excerpts, poems, images, and newspaper clippings that combine to create an unforgettable tale of both discovery and mystery. The blending of material is remarkable and magical, pulling us in to the complexity of a family separated by war, exploring the limits of memory- the things we carry with us, even when we don' t " remember" them. Starting with her father' s letters from Korea, she juxtaposes voices, times, and places. Peterson' s skillful work gives " reading between the lines" a fresh new meaning. This work is complex in its interweaving, but simple in its sentiment: love." - Jim Daniels