I am thrilled to announce my second full-length poetry collection; A Cage to Welcome

from Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

This book is about pregnancy, global warming, and the mother-body. It’s had a particularly long gestation, anchored by a 40-poem sequence composed from self-erasures of free writes written each week of my second pregnancy.

Each of the 40 poems in 40 weeks is 38-42 words long to reflect term gestation. That pregnancy was over ten years ago and the poems were revised slowly over the last decade.

Also collected here is the poem Windows from my fine press Chapbook Winter/Windows published in 2013 from Miel, since that book is now hard to find this is a great way to get your hands on what is one of my favorite poems. Windows is about the anxiety of motherhood, loving daughters, and growing up.

If you’ve heard me talk about why I wrote As Many Nows As I Can Get, I often mention one reason was not being able to write a poem that got to the heart of a few losses in my life. The failure of my poems led me to explore writing a YA novel. Ultimately the book became its own story with only core themes remaining. But one poem “My Sister’s Memory Is Half My Own,” came from that time. You can find that poem in A Cage To Welcome too.

You can order a signed copy of A Cage To Welcome from Main Street Books Saint Charles–please write signing instructions in the “instructions” box. (You can actually order my other available books signed from them as well! This is why authors love Indie bookstores!)