Martha Serpas's Double Effect reimagines Saint Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of that name, which governs whether an action is morally permissible despite a foreseeable evil result. In lush verse pointed by Cajun language, these poems measure the good that can result from destructive situations, encompassing ecological devastation, maternal deprivation, spiritual poverty, and mania. Time in this collection is kept by the feast days, hurricanes, celebrations, accidents, and rescues along southern Louisiana's disappearing bayous and eroding coasts. In the end, the question remains: Is there a good that can redeem suffering and loss?

 

Martha Serpas is the author of three collections of poetry, including The Diener and The Dirty Side of the Storm. Her work has appeared in the Nation, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Poetry, and elsewhere. A native of south Louisiana, she coproduced Veins in the Gulf, a documentary on Louisiana's coastal land loss. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and is a hospital chaplain.

ISBN: 9780807172759

Paperback

88 pages

6 x 9

LSU Press, 2020