A Wake for Josephine

Kenneth Robbins' A Wake for Josephine unfolds with all the suspense of a mystery novel, the drama of a detective film. Poem by poem, character by character, the reader pieces together clues to a murder: when the victim went missing, who she left behind, what she left behind... This book's parts all are poems, but the whole is a story that answers Josephine's own question, "Is it too late to die of old age?"
- H. L. Hix, author of Shadows of Houses and As Much As, If Not More

A Wake for Josephine chronicles through poetry, prose, and drama the impact that the passion-driven murder of a young, unassuming woman has on the community that embraced her. Suggested by the extraordinary actual events surrounding the disappearance and subsequent discovery of the carefully concealed body of an adjunct professor in a small university town, A Wake for Josephine poignantly and graphically brings the circumstances of her death into a semblance of focus. All in this tale of woe are given a voice; all are offered a chance for understanding; not all are successful. Though shaped as a collection of poems, monologues, essays, and dramas, it is instead a single piece, each element necessary for the sake of the story being told. A Wake for Josephine is Kenneth Robbins' first foray into the world of poetry.