The Past Isn't Done with Me Yet

Denise Sedman's poetry is both rich in original imagery and deeply felt in its emotions. Her poems give us a glimpse into the pain of living along with the darkness of truth. Her work is honest to the bone, and it's important for people to know what goes on behind the ruse of living. From her poems, readers come to understand that while life is not always paradise, it is not meaningless either because we all have a past that is never quite done with us.

-M. L. Liebler, Detroit Poet, Professor and Editor of RESPECT: Poets on Detroit Music

There is little sentimentality in this courageous collection that asks, Why doesn't Hallmark/ have a dysfunctional daddy series? Sedman filters memory through a lens at once distancing and intimate. She delivers the hard particulars of physical and psychological abuse with an engaging voice. It's an important narrative that needs to be told. This well-crafted collection is a gift to the many who've suffered at the hands of others. Here the past paves a road to a future where you are not alone. You'll find yourself rooting for the poet, and for women everywhere.

-Diane DeCillis, author of When The Heart Needs a Stunt Double

Denise Sedman's collection of poetry, The Past Isn't Done with Me Yet, feels familiar and in a few strokes of words she brings us to our knees emotionally. In one of my favorite poems the father lies dying at his house, in "The Jamaican Woman Zigzags a Broom Behind the Corpse to Make Sure the Spirit Leaves Along with the Body." A photo of the father as an altar boy is flung and smashed on the floor. His daughter finds a broom to spirit away the shards. Sedman's poems are personal and their short lyrical verses echo loudly. From these poems we learn what it is to be human.

-Russell Thorburn, author of Somewhere We'll Leave the World