Pre-orders Open for Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility
Preorders for my debut poetry collection open TODAY! Follow this link to Belle Point Press’s page where they write this whole thing up like it’s the real fuckn deal. Which it now is, apparently!
The process of getting this book out into the world started years ago, but *as a book* it really started about one year ago, when I took a solo trip to Savannah Georgia (where I had never been, and knew no one) and rented an Airbnb for one week so I could jigsaw a big stack of poems into a manuscript. (And be within earshot of the beach. Because of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book Gift from the Sea, which—however dated it’s become in recent decades, can still speak so clearly and wisely to mother-artists like me, and remains one of my favorite pieces of wisdom literature.) Anyway, this was about seven years' worth of poems. I didn't eat out, didn't do much sightseeing, mostly just...put this manuscript together. It was one of the biggest experiences of my life and I'll always be just gushingly, oozingly grateful for my kid being old and independent enough, and my partner being financially supportive enough to make it happen. Thanks Marshall. <3
I will likely be writing and talking a lot more about how artists who are mothers of young kids absolutely need this kind of retreat to get their work done, and (stay tuned!) how I'm in the early stages of creating a fund for mothers with less resources than I had/have to do just this kind of thing. But enough about things that are not info about preordering mah book: please preorder my book.
If you're curious about why "pre" ordering is a thing, scroll down to the previous blog post. Just enough info there to confuse you further, I'm sure. Ur welcome.
Lastly, are you even INTO my book? You might be, if: you like eco-poetics, anti-pastoralism, motherhood stuff (especially the darker batshit motherhood stuff), and things like matrescence, myth, Baba Yaga, and Southern Appalachia. If you're still not sure, follow the preorder link above to read super kind comments on my work from Jane Hirschfield (I'm still reeling, truly have not integrated Hirschfield’s selection of & comments on my piece on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale yet), Nancy Reddy, Jesse Graves, Marilyn Kallet, and—these comments mean a lot to me because of the connection we’ve made—my editor and great writer/poet in her own right, Casie Dodd.
