In her thoughtful debut collection, Theresa Monteiro uses the scenery of domestic and daily life to call forth fear and loss: the magnitude of human experience seen through the details of the ordinary. Under This Roof turns these abstractions into tangible moments and quietly but insistently asks us to contend with them.
Just as insistently, this collection offers the possibility of restoration, of making peace with grief, and of forging connection in a disrupted world. With clarity and generosity, these poems praise the human communion that can be created through language, even when language falls short. They show us how "good enough" can sometimes simply be good. Facing a world that is increasingly distrustful of hope, she asks, when has your despair predicted anything true?