WAITING FOR THE MERCY SHIP, poetry by Lois Roma-Deeley
Publication Date: February 15, 2025
Paperback, 76 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-93-6
In Waiting for the Mercy Ship, Lois Roma-Deeley’s unflinchingly intimate collection, “words carry the weight of holiness / like seeds in the belly of a sparrow.” Roma-Deeley is both family member and poet, but neither role can soften the experience. She describes hope for her loved one’s recovery from depths of despair and mental illness by using a crafted, lyrical-narrative. She addresses several letters to a “Sweet Boy” with an overarching plea, “Contemplate the essence of who you are right now in this time and place.” But being present is difficult for those who naturally question existing in the present. Her Sweet Boy's journey for relief disintegrates, as do the letters to him after the first section closes. Roma-Deeley draws strength from her attempts to articulate tragic loss; she invites us to enter each of her poems, search around in them, and with hope prevailing, exit. “There is an emptiness/in the leavings of sorrow” that Roma-Deeley won’t be able to escape. However, her resolve is clear, and “the last words [she] will ever utter / are not written here.”
Praise for Lois Roma-Deeley & Waiting for the Mercy Ship
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a brave, generous, and necessary collection of poems that opens its whole heart to allow readers insight into the grueling aftermath of loss. While the book is centered around grief, it is also grounded in love, faith, family, wonder, perseverance, and strength. In “True Story,” Lois Roma-Deeley promises her “Sweet Boy,” “I will inscribe every day, every hour and all the minutes/ you have been loved.” And in the book’s final poem, “The Last,” she summons the resolve to go on, saying “it’s for me to decide how I might live without/ conclusions.…/the last words I will ever utter/ are not written here.” This is a book that no one would ever want to write, but that everyone should read. In short, Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a gift to us all. I hope that it finds its way into the hands and hearts that need it, that ache to feel even the slightest breeze of mercy that might let them know they’re not alone.
—Daniel Donaghy, author of Somerset, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a book of intense beauty and lyrical clarity, a revelation—not out of grief but into a celebration, a chronicle. Reading Roma-Deeley is a study in tenderness and beauty. Her meticulous orchestration of emotion and language in this stunning collection ensures that one hears precisely what is intended. It is heartbreaking, loving, sad, and gorgeous. If “we hold” this book, then we grasp “a harvest of revelations” and “starflowers.” Roma-Deeley writes that “our past is a wish cut into hard stone,” but so is the enduring beauty of what she has written—only here is not a wish; here is a thing of enduring material and essential beauty.
—Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla
Lois Roma-Deeley writes, in Waiting for the Mercy Ship, from grief’s “weary journey of what-ifs” after a loved one’s suicide. Heart-wrenching but moving against the current toward hope, these stunning poems “sing into the shadows of too much sorrow.” Masterfully, the poet punctuates the collection with letters to “Sweet Boy” and well-meaning friends. Throughout, the word if is pivotal—“If I were brave,” “If Wisdom Could Be Dug Out of the Desert Earth,” “If we forget / the language of the earth,” “If healing has a starting point, / where does it begin?” But Lois Roma-Deeley ultimately is brave, wise, and able to capture the seemingly unsayable. Waiting for the Mercy Ship offers healing in honest questions, lyric laments, and unconditional embrace of family. For those grieving and those trying to help, each poem is a life raft.
—Marjorie Maddox, author of Seeing Things
About the Author
Lois Roma-Deeley, an award-winning poet, is the author of six full-length poetry collections. Her poems have been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, nationally and internationally. She has served as a creative writing contest judge at the local, state and national levels and has taught creative writing classes and workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Roma-Deeley is the Associate Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. She was named U.S. Professor of the Year, 2012, Community College, Carnegie Foundation; serves as Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona; and is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow. https://www.loisroma-deeley.com
Publication Date: February 15, 2025
Paperback, 76 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-93-6
In Waiting for the Mercy Ship, Lois Roma-Deeley’s unflinchingly intimate collection, “words carry the weight of holiness / like seeds in the belly of a sparrow.” Roma-Deeley is both family member and poet, but neither role can soften the experience. She describes hope for her loved one’s recovery from depths of despair and mental illness by using a crafted, lyrical-narrative. She addresses several letters to a “Sweet Boy” with an overarching plea, “Contemplate the essence of who you are right now in this time and place.” But being present is difficult for those who naturally question existing in the present. Her Sweet Boy's journey for relief disintegrates, as do the letters to him after the first section closes. Roma-Deeley draws strength from her attempts to articulate tragic loss; she invites us to enter each of her poems, search around in them, and with hope prevailing, exit. “There is an emptiness/in the leavings of sorrow” that Roma-Deeley won’t be able to escape. However, her resolve is clear, and “the last words [she] will ever utter / are not written here.”
Praise for Lois Roma-Deeley & Waiting for the Mercy Ship
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a brave, generous, and necessary collection of poems that opens its whole heart to allow readers insight into the grueling aftermath of loss. While the book is centered around grief, it is also grounded in love, faith, family, wonder, perseverance, and strength. In “True Story,” Lois Roma-Deeley promises her “Sweet Boy,” “I will inscribe every day, every hour and all the minutes/ you have been loved.” And in the book’s final poem, “The Last,” she summons the resolve to go on, saying “it’s for me to decide how I might live without/ conclusions.…/the last words I will ever utter/ are not written here.” This is a book that no one would ever want to write, but that everyone should read. In short, Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a gift to us all. I hope that it finds its way into the hands and hearts that need it, that ache to feel even the slightest breeze of mercy that might let them know they’re not alone.
—Daniel Donaghy, author of Somerset, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a book of intense beauty and lyrical clarity, a revelation—not out of grief but into a celebration, a chronicle. Reading Roma-Deeley is a study in tenderness and beauty. Her meticulous orchestration of emotion and language in this stunning collection ensures that one hears precisely what is intended. It is heartbreaking, loving, sad, and gorgeous. If “we hold” this book, then we grasp “a harvest of revelations” and “starflowers.” Roma-Deeley writes that “our past is a wish cut into hard stone,” but so is the enduring beauty of what she has written—only here is not a wish; here is a thing of enduring material and essential beauty.
—Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla
Lois Roma-Deeley writes, in Waiting for the Mercy Ship, from grief’s “weary journey of what-ifs” after a loved one’s suicide. Heart-wrenching but moving against the current toward hope, these stunning poems “sing into the shadows of too much sorrow.” Masterfully, the poet punctuates the collection with letters to “Sweet Boy” and well-meaning friends. Throughout, the word if is pivotal—“If I were brave,” “If Wisdom Could Be Dug Out of the Desert Earth,” “If we forget / the language of the earth,” “If healing has a starting point, / where does it begin?” But Lois Roma-Deeley ultimately is brave, wise, and able to capture the seemingly unsayable. Waiting for the Mercy Ship offers healing in honest questions, lyric laments, and unconditional embrace of family. For those grieving and those trying to help, each poem is a life raft.
—Marjorie Maddox, author of Seeing Things
About the Author
Lois Roma-Deeley, an award-winning poet, is the author of six full-length poetry collections. Her poems have been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, nationally and internationally. She has served as a creative writing contest judge at the local, state and national levels and has taught creative writing classes and workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Roma-Deeley is the Associate Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. She was named U.S. Professor of the Year, 2012, Community College, Carnegie Foundation; serves as Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona; and is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow. https://www.loisroma-deeley.com
Publication Date: February 15, 2025
Paperback, 76 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-93-6
In Waiting for the Mercy Ship, Lois Roma-Deeley’s unflinchingly intimate collection, “words carry the weight of holiness / like seeds in the belly of a sparrow.” Roma-Deeley is both family member and poet, but neither role can soften the experience. She describes hope for her loved one’s recovery from depths of despair and mental illness by using a crafted, lyrical-narrative. She addresses several letters to a “Sweet Boy” with an overarching plea, “Contemplate the essence of who you are right now in this time and place.” But being present is difficult for those who naturally question existing in the present. Her Sweet Boy's journey for relief disintegrates, as do the letters to him after the first section closes. Roma-Deeley draws strength from her attempts to articulate tragic loss; she invites us to enter each of her poems, search around in them, and with hope prevailing, exit. “There is an emptiness/in the leavings of sorrow” that Roma-Deeley won’t be able to escape. However, her resolve is clear, and “the last words [she] will ever utter / are not written here.”
Praise for Lois Roma-Deeley & Waiting for the Mercy Ship
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a brave, generous, and necessary collection of poems that opens its whole heart to allow readers insight into the grueling aftermath of loss. While the book is centered around grief, it is also grounded in love, faith, family, wonder, perseverance, and strength. In “True Story,” Lois Roma-Deeley promises her “Sweet Boy,” “I will inscribe every day, every hour and all the minutes/ you have been loved.” And in the book’s final poem, “The Last,” she summons the resolve to go on, saying “it’s for me to decide how I might live without/ conclusions.…/the last words I will ever utter/ are not written here.” This is a book that no one would ever want to write, but that everyone should read. In short, Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a gift to us all. I hope that it finds its way into the hands and hearts that need it, that ache to feel even the slightest breeze of mercy that might let them know they’re not alone.
—Daniel Donaghy, author of Somerset, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize
Waiting for the Mercy Ship is a book of intense beauty and lyrical clarity, a revelation—not out of grief but into a celebration, a chronicle. Reading Roma-Deeley is a study in tenderness and beauty. Her meticulous orchestration of emotion and language in this stunning collection ensures that one hears precisely what is intended. It is heartbreaking, loving, sad, and gorgeous. If “we hold” this book, then we grasp “a harvest of revelations” and “starflowers.” Roma-Deeley writes that “our past is a wish cut into hard stone,” but so is the enduring beauty of what she has written—only here is not a wish; here is a thing of enduring material and essential beauty.
—Saddiq Dzukogi, author of Your Crib, My Qibla
Lois Roma-Deeley writes, in Waiting for the Mercy Ship, from grief’s “weary journey of what-ifs” after a loved one’s suicide. Heart-wrenching but moving against the current toward hope, these stunning poems “sing into the shadows of too much sorrow.” Masterfully, the poet punctuates the collection with letters to “Sweet Boy” and well-meaning friends. Throughout, the word if is pivotal—“If I were brave,” “If Wisdom Could Be Dug Out of the Desert Earth,” “If we forget / the language of the earth,” “If healing has a starting point, / where does it begin?” But Lois Roma-Deeley ultimately is brave, wise, and able to capture the seemingly unsayable. Waiting for the Mercy Ship offers healing in honest questions, lyric laments, and unconditional embrace of family. For those grieving and those trying to help, each poem is a life raft.
—Marjorie Maddox, author of Seeing Things
About the Author
Lois Roma-Deeley, an award-winning poet, is the author of six full-length poetry collections. Her poems have been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, nationally and internationally. She has served as a creative writing contest judge at the local, state and national levels and has taught creative writing classes and workshops at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Roma-Deeley is the Associate Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. She was named U.S. Professor of the Year, 2012, Community College, Carnegie Foundation; serves as Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona; and is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow. https://www.loisroma-deeley.com