I’m very excited to finally share that my new poetry chapbook, Another Storm in Nebraska, is here.
There is always something strange about reaching the point where a piece of writing is finished, since they never truly feel finished. More like something alive. For so long, these poems existed as individual documents on my computer. Things I returned to, revised, abandoned, reopened, and occasionally convinced myself were finished before changing them again. Now they exist together as a book, which feels both exciting and a little terrifying.
These poems no longer exist on their own, as something I can reshape and tinker with individually. They are now real and alive and outside of my control.
Another Storm in Nebraska feels especially close to me because so much of my writing has been shaped by this place. Nebraska has a way of becoming more than a setting. There are thunderstorms that seem to swallow the entire sky, winters that refuse to end, summers that turn everything gold, and stretches of land where you can see farther than you probably want to. It is beautiful, frustrating, lonely, familiar, and home.
I think poetry has always been one of the ways I try to make sense of the world.
These poems come from different moments in my life and from different versions of myself. Some were easy to write. Others took years before I understood what I was actually trying to say. Putting them beside one another made me notice conversations happening between poems that I hadn’t necessarily intended when I first wrote them.
And maybe that is one of my favorite things about putting together a collection. A poem can begin as one small attempt to capture a feeling, a memory, a person, or a moment. Then you put it beside another poem, and suddenly they are speaking to each other.
The title Another Storm in Nebraska felt right because there is something almost ordinary about a storm here. You see the clouds gathering. The sky changes color. The wind picks up. You know something is coming.
And then, eventually, it passes and we keep on living.
I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has read my work, encouraged me to keep writing, published individual poems along the way, or simply listened while I talked through whatever I happened to be working on at the time. Writing can be incredibly solitary, but finishing a book has reminded me how many people exist around the work, too.
Mostly, though, I’m just happy these poems finally get to belong somewhere other than my computer.
Another Storm in Nebraska is available now.
You can learn more about the chapbook and get a copy here.
And if you do read it, thank you. Truly. There are a lot of books in the world and only so many hours to read them. The idea that someone might spend a little of that time with something I wrote means more to me than I know how to properly say.
So, for now:
Here’s to another storm.
