Cover for Larks, New poems in Dusie, Psaltery & Lyre, Raleigh Review, Black Lily Zine

Little note I wrote on Instagram this morning: Larks (Ohio University Press, April 2025) has a cover, and it is a beauty. It’s not often you can ask for what you want, or receive what you want, but the conditions and the timing really came together here, and with OUP’s blessing I asked the artist Nicola Davison-Reed for permission to use her photograph “Breathing” for my cover. Nicola is a portrait artist based in the UK, and takes studio preparatory shots before she begins her sessions every day—this is one of those shots. (When I asked, she had just posted this photo and told me “this one is fresh as a daisy!”). Because these poems work with the documentary and multiple lenses, as well as the domestic (yes, there is a curtain blowing through), I have had one of Nicola’s photographs on my vision board for several years. It is SUCH a joy to feature one on Larks’ cover—both soft and spare and reflective and inclusive of the viewer. I can’t wait for you to read Larks in April. Holler at me if you want a review copy or to schedule a class visit or interview with me this spring.

Here is a blurb from Diane Seuss, that I’m so grateful to have—Seuss’s work has really spoken to me (speaks to me!) as poetry that springs up from a similar rural and working class landscape as the one I come from:

And some new poems! I don’t publish that much (one poem last year, seriously), because life is overwhelmingly and trauma work is real, y’all. But I’m grateful when I have the energy to submit, and even more grateful when a poem finds the right editor reader(s). Many thanks to the editors and journals below—all of the following poems are from my third manuscript, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, which is most definitely my sexiest manuscript to date, ha.

"Tornado warning of my heart on a clear day," Psaltery & Lyre

"I Like to Think Emily Dickinson Would Read The Ethical Slut under an Umbrella by the Pool," Dusie

"Partial Listing of My Kinks" and "Novgorod is a Thousand-Year-Old City Whose Name Means New," Raleigh Review (forthcoming)

"With Hands Over Our Faces and Laughter in the Grass" and "last night I was sexting and reading June Jordan," Black Lily Zine (forthcoming)

Last but not least: AWP.

FRIENDS: once again, no panels accepted. I had a confused pity party for myself while trying to understand where our press registration had gone and trying to track information across AWP’s rather abysmal new website transition. One of these days I’m going to write the sexiest, most Southern, most documentary poetics panel that AWP has ever seen, and they will not be able to refuse it—in fact, they will pay US to present it, haha. A girlboy can dream. Anyway, please holler at me if you find yourself in want of a panelist. I’ve got a wide ranging background from 17th poetics to contemporary poetics, the sonnet and lyric tradition, epics and genre, Southerness, whiteness, writing trauma, mental health & healing, teaching vulnerable populations, neurodivergence, let’s goo. Also reach out if you’d like me to read with you. What with co-running the River River Books table, I don’t have a lot of energy for additional organizing, but I do want to attempt a modicum of a social life—especially with Larks debuting this AWP! I’m grateful for your consideration.

With the chill weather blowing in, and the frenetic pace of life, I hope you find a soft blanket and a hot cup of tea, and give yourself the permission to retreat into quiet today—because tomorrow the noise will still be there.

Han