My book has a cover! (and she's a bratty little beaut)

(cross-posted from my Substack)

Hey, hi! I don’t normally send back-to-back newsletters in the same month, but I also don’t normally have such good news that I want to share right away!

This is the official cover for my forthcoming poetry collection, Cosmic Tantrum, which will be out February 15, 2025 from Curbstone Books (an imprint of Northwestern University Press). The cover is by Marianne Jankowski (mjdesign.studio) and is a real eye-catcher, IMHO. I love the bold graphics and the orbit lines and that audacious little spark at the bottom of the lightning bolt. Also, this font, which reminds me of Art Nouveau meets The Jetsons.

In addition to a cover, my book now has a page at NUP’s site where you can preorder it! (You should also be able to request by ISBN from your favorite indie bookstore.) Preorders really help authors, as they can signal to booksellers and sales reps that there’s a lot of interest in a book before it’s even out, which can mean more stores will carry the book, generating more interest, etc. 🔄

I’m running my own DIY preorder campaign inspired by a tarot offering I used to do (a mini-reading plus a custom poem). If you’re one of the first 50 preorders (and want this, lol), I will pull three cards for you and write you a little something in response to them. If you’re one of the first 100 preorders, I will send you a signed bookplate. ✍️

If those goodies are of interest to you, email a copy of your receipt to me at cosmictantrum [at] gmail [dot] com and let me know what address I can snail mail your goods to. 💌

Many thanks to Marianne Jankowski, my editor Marisa Siegel, and the whole NUP team. And many, many thanks to Rachel Feder, Taylor Byas, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, who wrote such beautiful blurbs (and to Lucy Ives, whose beautiful blurb came in after the original version of this post went out):

“William Blake taught us that nothing could be scarier than fairy tales for grown-ups. T.S. Eliot taught us that selfhood inheres in the desire for self-erasure. Somewhere in the wild space between these guiding poetics, Sarah Lyn Rogers’s Cosmic Tantrum lays a table for tea.”—Rachel Feder, coauthor of Astrolit: A Bibliophile's Guide to the Stars

“As its title suggests, Sarah Lyn Rogers’s Cosmic Tantrum brilliantly confronts society’s infantilization of women by pulling an Uno reverse. What happens when society gets the ‘good girl’ that it asks for? These poems rage during meditations, they defy in corporate emails, they turn their brattiness up so loud that we all turn to watch their meltdowns. But in our watching, we are forced to reckon with our own discomfort with Rogers’s ‘outsized’ anger. This book reminds us that a tantrum is often a result of our own inattention and neglect. How do we soothe the monster we’ve created?”—Taylor Byas, author of I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times 

“Too much of this world’s currency / is shame,” writes Sarah Lyn Rogers, in Cosmic Tantrum, which frees childhood of its innocence to indict the false motives of conditional love. Flipping the language of business, fairy tale, and dissolution, Rogers rewrites girlhood to offer a refuge from domesticity. Shifting form and address to reason with Kafka, Charlie Brown, Little Edie in Grey Gardens, and the ghosts that haunt survival, Cosmic Tantrum summons mischief to banish harm." —Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of Touching the Art

“It seems incredible—nay, impossible—that so many great poems could reside in a single collection, but, reader, it is credible and it is possible, because this is a book by Sarah Lyn Rogers. I read each page with absolute greed, astonished by this jewel-like horde of gorgeous ironies and hard-won information about things hidden since the start of the world.” —Lucy Ives, author of An Image of My Name Enters America

Thank you so much for celebrating with me!

Out now: I DONE CLICKED MY HEELS THREE TIMES by Taylor Byas

It was an absolute honor to work on this collection with Taylor Byas, and I’m so glad everyone else can read it too and be floored by the power, grace, and agency of these poems. Taylor takes familiar forms and turns them on their heads, bends and sculpts them into something inevitable but surprising. Through it all, a clear picture emerges—of Chicago, of Black girlhood, of reclaiming the stories.

Inspired by The Wiz, this debut, full-length poetry collection celebrates South Side Chicago and a Black woman’s quest for self-discovery—one that pulls her away from the safety of home and into her power

I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman’s journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz—a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home—serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy’s drive-thru, a Beyoncé video, Grandma’s house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her.

Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn’t just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.

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*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER*

Shortlisted for the Maya Angelou Book Award
The Millions, A Must-Read Poetry Book of Summer

“A buoyant blast of South Side love and ache, conversing with Gwendolyn Brooks and Carl Sandburg, finding room for Harold’s Chicken and Claudia Rankine.” —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

“In prose both heart wrenching in one line and hilarious the other, Byas paints a portrait of life in Chicago with all of its ups and downs.” —Sam Franzini, Our Culture Magazine

“A literary descendant of fellow Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks. Like Brooks, the 27-year-old Byas turns the everyday aspects of life into the exuberantly extraordinary . . . Her collection is a love letter to the city that made her—and to her own journey of self-discovery.” —Diamond Sharp, Chicago Magazine

“With vivid imagery and a staggering wit, Taylor Byas paints portraits of her childhood on the south side and the city in warm hues . . . Byas etches out the beauty in the most mundane parts of Chicago with a reflective eye . . . I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times offers a weighty contribution to Black Chicago’s poetry legacy.” —Reema Saleh, Chicago Reader

“This impressive debut is a celebration of Chicago’s South Side, telling the story of a Black woman’s quest for self-discovery. Every poem is alive with the beauty and intimacy of growing up in the city . . . [A] stunning achievement whose lyricism echoes some of Chicago’s greatest poets, including Gwendolyn Brooks and Eve L. Ewing.” —Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

“It is impossible to understate the breadth and skill that Byas demonstrates throughout I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times . . . This collection is further proof that Byas is one of the most important voices in American poetry . . . We are experiencing a legend in the making.” —The Poetry Question

“[An] ecstatic debut . . . These nuanced and complex poems offer unforgettable snapshots of Black life in a vibrant city.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The poet uses her strong voice to deliver evocative, richly described snapshots . . . In this promising work, Byas tells an intimate story of growing up.” —Booklist (starred review)

“My fellow Chicagoans, rejoice. Taylor Byas’s poems are visually stunning and formally inventive. They give us more proof that everything dope does indeed come from Chicago.” —José Olivarez, author of Promises of Gold

“So many of the greatest poets in the American tradition have been Chicago Black women and this debut collection is an announcement that one more has joined that proud tradition. Byas’s work unfolds with tender attention to all sides of life in the Black metropolis. From mulberry trees to daisy dukes to candy ladies to liquor stores, this work sings of the city that raised me in an authentic way, with a careful formal attention befitting the lineage of Gwendolyn Brooks. This is a work to cherish.” —Nate Marshall, author of Finna: Poems

“In The Wiz, Dorothy finds the song of Oz and follows it down the road, easily—Taylor Byas unearths that spirit-music, too, in her stunning debut, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times. These poems illuminate Chicago, the body, the sweat of condensation on the Kool Aid cups cooling in the heat on a summer day in technicolor memory and careful music. It is the Chicago that’s there all along among the emerald streets, the self that is always there, the loud and frightening sparkle of a father’s memory, and the sharp edge of a lover’s rough touch. It is the shades of love blooming, green, across the South Side of Chicago. In fresh, inventive, and living formal verse and free verse, Taylor Byas paints the golden path, brick by brick, and we ease on down it.” —Ashley M. Jones, author of Reparations Now!: Poems

“Some collections attempt to build new worlds. Others return to old worlds and write them anew. Byas’ dive into the familial and the familiar is an intimate project, one that questions motherhood, love, and mourning in tandem. All this, in a Chicago that shole ain’t what this world tries to make of it. Taylor’s Chicago flexes and bristles and brims with life. In Byas’ work, Chicago is a/the world, one reimagined as a clever, raw, and beautiful character. Clever, especially so because Byas uses a vast toolbelt stocked well with forms and voice(s) and smirking candor. She tells us of and tells us the truth. Byas writes, ‘what we want has so little room to grow,’ yet all the while, makes room, makes room, makes room. Move out the damn way already!” —Aurielle Marie, author of Gumbo Ya Ya: Poems

HIGH-RISK HOMOSEXUAL and PATH OF TOTALITY are out now!

High-Risk Homosexual cover and animation designed by Michael Salu, houseofthought.io

Somehow, despite everything, the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing. Now that the tulips and daffodils in town tell me, emphatically, that it’s real spring (not the fool’s spring of a couple weeks ago), I realize I’m overdue to shout out these winter books!

High-Risk Homosexual, the debut memoir by national treasure Edgar Gomez, was published on 1/11/22. This memoir follows a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing his gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo—from his uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.—and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who helped him redefine pride.

Edgar’s book got a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and a beautiful review from ¡Hola Papi! himself, John Paul Brammer, in the New York Times!! The TODAY show and VOGUE also featured the book, and BOMB, NYLON, Poets & Writers, and the American Bookseller Association all ran in-depth interviews with Edgar. I can’t pick a favorite, so you should probably just read all of them. I also got to speak with Publishers Weekly about what makes High-Risk Homosexual, an ABA Indies Introduce pick, so special!

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"Excellent . . . A journey not without difficulties, but also not without saving grace."—Rigoberto González, On the Seawall

"Heartbreaking, funny, and vulnerable . . . Gomez expertly captures what it means to be on the cusp of embracing your full, queer self when the world doesn’t want you to do so."—Eva Recinos, Bitch

"A riotously funny and poignant debut by a quick-witted new voice . . . Displaying a masterful blend of humor, personal reflection, and thoughtful commentary on Latinx culture, Gomez’s first work is as good as it is largely due to its emotional sincerity, its willingness to examine the mistakes and lessons learned just as closely as it does the triumphs . . . This book—open, anguished, brimming with humanity—is, above all, a work of hope."—Isabella Pilotta Gois, Latino Book Review

"A breath of fresh air . . . Gomez writes with a humor and clarity . . . Gomez’s voice is equal parts warmth and acid wit, like a good friend you’re slightly afraid of . . . An exciting debut from an author with a rare point of view. High-Risk Homosexual deals with some titanic questions. What is Latinidad? What is machismo? What does it mean to be a man, never mind a queer man? By its own admission, the book doesn’t have all the answers, but it makes a compelling case that they will come from the razor-sharp queers living in the margins." —John Paul Brammer, The New York Times Book Review

THIS MEMOIR HAS EVERYTHING:

A door torn off its hinges

A mattress made out of T-shirts

Truck Nutz

A 5’9” uncut Venezuelan dude

The most famous woman in the world

A tragic, heartbroken elf

Maybelline foundation shade: Rich Tan

A baby wailing in an ancient Jesuit language

An instruction manual for raising a boy

A Honda Civic named the Speed Queen

The hottest person alive: Rachel Maddow/The Rock

A mob of supportive, half-naked strangers

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"Gomez’s vulnerable and humorous voice gives strength to High-Risk Homosexual. And yes, while this highly personal memoir is written through the unique lens of a femme-queer-Latinx, there is a universal narrative that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt marginalized. No matter how we identify or where we end up, ultimately, we are all high-risk, and Gomez captures this universality so well. Shantay."— Trey Burnette, Los Angeles Review of Books

"High-Risk Homosexual is an absolute marvel in voice, style, and its raucous, tender, heartbreaking, compassionate, and ultimately triumphant examination of gay spaces, the politics of gender, violence against GLBTQ folks, and, of course, the human heart. Edgar Gomez is an unforgettable writer with enviously fantastic storytelling skills. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll rage, you'll buy this book for all of your friends." —Emily Rapp Black, author of Sanctuary and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg 

“Edgar Gomez is the chaotic queer hero we both need and deserve—with humor and charm, he tenderly leads us into night clubs, bathhouses, the backseat of cars with anonymous men, asking us to examine our current place in the world amongst the lonely and brokenhearted, the ones who dare live our truest lives. For anyone whose coming out and coming of age is messy in all the ways, let High-Risk Homosexual be a road map.” —Christopher Gonzalez, author of I'm Not Hungry but I Could Eat

“High-Risk Homosexual is a vivacious, compelling, and intimate portrait about queer coming of age and finding oneself. Gomez’s writing has this special way of inviting us in, like an old friend, catching us up to the pains, doldrums, and pleasures of living, reminding us at every turn of the exquisite messiness that is life. This memoir is a sheer delight, and one not to be missed.” —Marcos Gonsalez, author of Pedro's Theory: Reimagining the Promised Land

"The catalogue page for this debut memoir lists a number of things you can expect to find within the book’s contents. Among them are 'Maybelline foundation shade: Rich Tan,' 'A baby wailing in an ancient Jesuit language,' and 'The most famous woman in the world.' If that doesn’t entice you to read Gomez’s account of figuring out how to embrace his queer identity amid a culture of machismo, I’m not sure what will." —Keely Weiss, Harper's Bazaar, A Best LGBT Book of the Year 

“High-Risk Homosexual is a keen and tender exploration of queer identity, masculinity, and belonging. From the cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was taken by his uncles to learn how to be a man, to the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, where he witnesses freedom and joy on the dance floor, Edgar Gomez writes with honesty and humor about the difficulty of straddling boundaries and the courage of finding oneself. This book signals the arrival of a major new talent.” —Laila Lalami, author of Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America and The Other Americans

“High-Risk Homosexual is like a delicious cocktail: sharp, nuanced, sweet and tender when the bite must be tempered. Edgar Gomez writes with the magnetic candor that flourishes at gay bars, with as much style as all the queens at DragCon, with observant eyes well-trained in steamy bathhouses—all of which he sketches in these electric pages. This book parses queer spaces, the queer self, with a heart as intelligent and thoughtful as its author. As he proves in his unapologetic memoir, Gomez is a force to be reckoned with.” —Matt Ortile, author of The Groom Will Keep His Name

“Edgar Gomez has written a memoir that stands out among so many others, with a narrative voice that's singularly hilarious and observant and unforgettable, so perfectly nuanced with memory and humor in limning the landscapes of love in Florida and Nicaragua. At the center is his mother, a bright vivid burst of fear and tenderness and absolute deephearted love. High-Risk Homosexual presents a brand new voice of impeccable clarity and vision.” —Susan Straight, American Book Award finalist and author of In The Country of Women

“There's a rhythm to vulnerable, honest writing and Edgar Gomez doesn't miss a beat in High-Risk Homosexual. His characters—his mother, his friends, his lovers—are his dance partners that he lovingly dips and twirls across the page, their beauty on full display even as he bares their humanity and his own to the audience. This memoir is a master class in humor with warmth, not ridicule, and truth with tenderness, not overexposure. Pick this book up for the laughs, but have your tissue ready for a few tears too.” —Minda Honey, author of An Anthology of Assholes

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Cover art and animation by Michael Salu, houseofthought.io

Then, on 2/8/22, Niina Pollari’s poetry collection, Path of Totality, was released. This is a remarkable collection explores the sudden loss of her child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows, rendering a shattering experience with candor and immediacy.

This book was edited by Sarah Jean Grimm, with some behind-the-scenes logistical assistance from me. It was a real honor to have a hand in bringing it to the world and all of the people who see their experiences reflected here.

Path of Totality also received a starred review at Publishers Weekly, was featured as a best book of the month at NYLON, and aptly called “a special, cosmic gift” by Just Circling Back. Niina was interviewed at Shelf Awareness and Triangle House. GRANTA excerpted a couple of the poems, which you can read here, and you can hear Niina read the title poem here at Catapult.

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"Pollari’s writing is expansive, all-encompassing. These poems feel like a generous act; in sharing her tragedy — not just the sorrow, but the fierce and enduring love, the moments of pure bliss — Pollari is offering a legacy, a blindingly beautiful corona surrounding all that darkness. This book, then, feels like a special, cosmic gift." —Kristin Iversen, Just Circling Back 

"A gorgeous poetry collection that contends with the sudden passing of a child. Niina Pollari's poems capture the specific, devastating feelling of fixation: not only on spurts of grief but on the small strange things you pay attention to in the wake of it, as if your brain can only hold so much." —Sophia June, Nylon, One of the Best Books of the Month 

"Pollari writes with straightforward, heartbreaking clarity. These poems are unflinching and powerful yet speak in simple, flat language that suggests everything can suddenly look different after a life-changing experience. . . . Pollari has suffered the indescribable and written from that place, showing how fierce love can be, and how unspeakable grief can be endured." —Publishers Weekly  (starred review) 

"This poet speaks from the most terrible grief, losing a child, in the most direct way possible. When language begins to fail, she does not fall silent, but moves into a startling metaphorical knowledge: 'What are you supposed to call the feeling / When you see a star and realize that it corresponds to a map / That it’s just one point in a huge map / Extending over everything like an enormous dark skull.' The poems are often not dark or sad. Yet they all feel achieved by means of an utterly terrible price. When I read their harrowing truths, I remember the irrefutable necessity of poetry." —Matthew Zapruder, author of Father’s Day and Why Poetry

"The exquisitely lyric Path of Totality is as gentle and tender as it is fierce and potent . . . Genre feels less important than the shape and shaping of language itself, and Path of Totality is a container woven to fit the content perfectly. Grief is messy, and the work does not deny that. But there is nothing chaotic about these poems. They grasp the raw and honorable honesty that deep sorrow demands, and deliver with startling clarity and attention the impossible, unending experience of loss, yes—but also, the vast emotional landscape of human experience." —Khadijah Queen, author of Anodyne

“You hold this book but this book also holds you . . . This book is alive, as painful as that might be to its brilliant writer. It’s not much comfort but not much can comfort—comfort is not in this universe. What suffuses this universe is all the universe holds despite what, and who, is lost. Am I speaking in code? Any reader of this book knows what I’m saying about it—to the reader nothing, not even utter emptiness, is alien. And emptiness is never utter, though it can be uttered and that sound resembles a splash of stars, a milky wash of stark existence, consciousness, connectedness almost unbearably relentless, almost unbearably beautiful.” —Brenda Shaughnessy, author of The Octopus Museum

“These poems are blisteringly clear, devastated, and oracular, and they brim with the kindness that comes after terrible enlightenment.” —Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People and 300 Arguments

“It seems impossible this book was written, and with such grace and startling beauty. Amidst utter devastation and pain—hope, even humor emerges, and tenderness for others, and the other-than-human. These poems are the sunflowers growing up through the abyss.” —Kate Zambreno, author of Drifts

WHAT TO MISS WHEN by Leigh Stein is available now!

Cover design and animation by Michael Salu (houseofthought.io)

On the heels of last summer’s hit novel Self Care, Leigh Stein’s long-awaited second poetry collection (and fifth book) is out now! What to Miss When is a 21st-century Decameron about pop culture, mortality, and the internet, written during the Coronavirus pandemic. You can order it here or from your favorite indie bookstore.

Leigh spoke about the book on NPR’s Morning Edition, and we’re doing an event tonight with Brooklyn Poets on what it was like to write and edit an entire poetry collection during the first six months of the pandemic.

Across social media, readers are describing What to Miss When as "a cathartic, playful, devious little read," what would happen if "Inside by Bo Burnham was an episode of Gossip Girl," and "a sometimes-chilling, sometimes-hilarious time capsule of a year that none of us saw coming... It feels like laughing with a friend after the end of the world."

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THIS TIME CAPSULE HOLDS:

Panic kept on you at all times like a passport

Boccaccio's Brigata and the Brat Pack

Malaise confessed in sexy baby voices

Perfume spritzed inside plague-doctor mask

Cringe as onomatopoeia

A mermaid gown of Clorox wipes

Juicy thoughtcrime thrown to a tiger

Post-it stating, Body positivity, ever heard of it?

The last Achilles of the twentieth century

Even the most virtuous with their breeches on their heads

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“I am so thankful for [Stein’s] brain—and these poems.” —Emily Burack, Alma 

“In her dazzling new collection, Leigh Stein has managed to create art from the mess of modern life, with poems both elegiac and flippant in equal measure . . . She manages to imbue each poem with just enough levity to keep the reader from losing hope. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough.” —The Voracious Bibliophile

“What To Miss When is hilarious and absolutely horrifying. If you think the quarantine habits you developed are unique and charming, read this book to be put in your place. But I beg of you, gift that to yourself, it’ll make you feel less alone. ‘I’m a feminist, I got the memo,’ is Stein’s perfect disclaimer when shouting the things so many of us are afraid to even whisper. It’s a specific kind of book that helps us remember how things were, that serves as a map for our children to understand why we are the way we are. This book is one of them.” —Olivia Gatwood, author of Life of the Party

"Early on, the speaker says she 'must be some basic bitch to click / ‘Decameron and Chill?’ in Town and Country,' and we know we’re in for a ride through the pandemic that has some 'mischief' in it. It’s this mischief, Stein’s relentlessly refreshing humor about the 'new normal'—equal parts rueful self-deprecation and excoriating cultural critique—that makes this book such a worthy artifact of the American experience of the pandemic." —Jason Koo, founder and executive director of Brooklyn Poets

“Initially, you may think these poems are witty. They Are. Upon reflection, you may decide these poems are piercingly honest reflections of contemporary desires, run headlong into a plague year. They are. In the dark of a sleepless night, you may feel that these poems saw through your ironic façade and got at something deeper. They did.”—Keith Mosman, Powell's Books (Portland, OR)