Chaucer’s Books will host writer, dancer, performance artist and filmmaker Serena Chopra for a discussion of her poetry book “A Catalog of Future Mercies,” 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30 at 3321 State St., Santa Barbara.

“In this luminous memoir-in-poems, Serena Chopra explores the complexities of mercy in an immigrant family haunted by generational violence,” Chaucer’s said.

“Drawing connections between the brutalized prairie beneath suburban lawns and the brutalized body seeking reclamation through sensuality, Chopra examines what it means to be a survivor descended from both survivors and perpetrators,” the bookstore said.

Through divinatory poetics and cross-temporal storytelling, Chopra parallels national histories of violence with the paradox of caretaking for a parent who has been both victim and abuser.

And, in the specters of generational violence, Chopra invokes an imperative to stay present with lineages of trauma rather than slip into personal and cultural amnesia.

Chopra holds a Ph.D in creative writing from the University of Denver and has received support from the NEA, MacDowell, Kundiman, and Fulbright.

She is the author of “This Human,” “Ic,” and “A Catalog of Future Mercies.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 




 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
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