Somerset

the long version

*Somerset* is an elegy for the Kensington section of Philadelphia in which the author was raised. Using a variety of styles and forms, it remembers people and cultures struggling to survive in the aftermath of deindustrialization and, now, an opioid epidemic. It is also a study in how our past continually informs our present, how we never fully leave those places in which our younger selves were formed. *Somerset* bears witness to racism, poverty, violent crime, and drug use, but also finds forgiveness, thankfulness, and love.