Martina McGowan

Martina McGowan brings a physician’s attention to public life into poetry concerned with race, grief, endurance and collective responsibility. I am The Rage gathers free-verse poems written in response to racial injustice and the protests of 2020. The 2021 Sourcebooks edition includes illustrations by Diana Ejaita, whose contribution forms part of the book’s visual argument. McGowan spent decades practising medicine before retiring; her writing for general readers also covers health and personal reflection. The collection’s brief poems register anger alongside historical memory and the demand for change. Its partnership of text and illustration makes the book a collaborative object even though McGowan is the sole author of the poems.