TO ORDER: finishinglinepress.com/produ… For anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a breakup, the five stages of grief may not be enough. Sometimes you have to rage against the dying light, express every hidden thought, say goodbye several times, and fall in (and out of) love all over again. No platitudes or vague promises can soothe the raw wounds—and maybe that’s ok. In defiance and encouragement, this collection explores what it sounds like when you feel the entirety of your feelings and allow yourself to wallow in the tender places. Turning a lens of frank honesty on both the writer and her subject, Dumpster Fire Heart is a journey of one person trying to define what living looks like after her heart has stopped beating. It’s about recognizing the ugly ways in which we hurt each other and the lengths we must crawl to in order to heal. #grief #heartache #love #healing #poetry Allie Coker holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. Her works have appeared in various publications including the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. She has also had the pleasure of participating in residencies, retreats, and conferences with VCCA, Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, Writeaways, and NCWN. Dumpster Fire Heart is her third book. She lives in Chapel Hill.

phillychapbookreview.org/poe… #poetry #books #recommended

Nicole Zwolinski, author of Motherhead published by Finishing Line Press, will be signing books at an event at Open Book in Minneapolis, MN. The event will be Saturday, November 28 from 1-3 p.m. and feature readings by local poets. openbookmn.org/events/book-l… #poetry #event #recommended #booksigning

Mercilee Jenkins will present selections from Words You Can’t Eat in Public, her debut poetry chapbook, at Tell It On Tuesday, a monthly storytelling event, on October 27, 7:00 PM (PT) at The Marsh, Berkeley, CA. Tickets are available for the in-person show and also for the live-stream online (live-stream online tickets). This collection is soon to be publish by Finishing Line Press. Words You Can’t Eat in Public is a poetic memoir composed of twenty poems. As a queer feminist, Jenkins takes us on an emotional journey from instructions on how to find a poem in nature to the joy of sharing a last moment with a dear friend. Dr. Mercilee Jenkins is an award-winning poet, performance artist and playwright. “Words You Can’t Eat in Public meets the promise of such a title. M. Jenkins leaves us small surprises in all kinds of places. Read the poems out loud because they should be in the air, winking at us, like raindrops.”—K. Shuck, 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, Author of Pick a Garnet to Sleep In tellitontuesday.org/index.ph… #poetry #evnt #booksigning

Thank you to the Midwest Book Review for reviewing A Moth Collection Anna Ojascastro Guzon (Finishing Line Press) midwestbookreview.com/mbw/oc… #books #poetry #bookreview

New from Finishing Line Press: RECURRING DREAM WITH BRIGHT ORANGE EVERYTHING by Molly McGinnis   On SALE:    finishinglinepress.com/produ…   RECURRING DREAM WITH BRIGHT ORANGE EVERYTHING is a debut collection of poems that act as dispatches between the mysterious and the measurable, while sticking to a core belief: that few states in life are fixed. Themes of curiosity, loss, playfulness, and desire emerge across shifting settings, from the fading 20th century, to a corner store, to a friend’s backyard shot through with eerie light. #poetry #dreams #mystery #contemporary   Molly McGinnis is a writer based in Washington, D.C. She has a degree in literature from American University and currently works and studies in the Department of Epidemiology at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Her poetry has been incorporated into curricula for high school students via both CommonLit and Pearson, and she has written for a number of publications in both creative and research capacities, including Guernica, CQ Researcher, The American Institute of Physics, the Journal of Clinical Oncology: Oncology Practice, The Washington Independent Review of Books, and The Environmental Media Association. From March 2020 through May 2023, she served in a variety of leadership roles with the COVID-19 crisis response organization Medical Supply Drive (MSD), including as a regional co-coordinator for Washington, D.C. and a National Logistics Director for the United States. MSD’s work was covered by CNN, Fox, and NBC New York, among other outlets. She is a member of the Health Professionals in Training program with the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) and has volunteered with the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for over ten years.    PRAISE:   In Molly McGinnis’ new collection, her first, the literary convention of the dream vision—in a long lineage including William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, and the twentieth century dream-master, Max Jacob—arranges the ordinary into surreal shapes that startle and disturb the reader from the American delirium. We are really here, in the middle of the great nothing, blithely crossing the street, or suddenly time traveling to a forgotten evening twenty years before our births. What is brilliant about McGinnis’ work is the way she writes in a voice of utmost clarity to speak of mysterious things, where other dream poets try too hard to estrange, ending up vague and pedestrian. But this clear-mystery, this sense that all of the world outside is actually being projected from the inside (as dreams teach us), is handled in a way that feels new, delightfully reorganized into an erotic joining with the universe. It’s tantric, it’s ecstatic, this discovering the cosmos within our own flesh and blood: “Above us, evening drains to marks across the rooftops,” she writes. “Eyes of Hydra watching Cancer, Mars’s hemoglobin light.” Few old salts could paint real life as well as this author does, even now at the start of her career. –David Keplinger, author of Ice.   Recurring Dream with Bright Orange Everything is partly a naturalist’s catalogue of the sumptuous, distressing earth and the human creatures who blur their way across it, partly a researcher’s tough-minded inquiry into what is knowable in human history and in the various sciences that history has engendered. In McGinnis’s hands, we see why those “fields” of study are also called “disciplines”: it takes an iron determination to pick the lock of time’s mysteries, though under such touch “the century shivers/ and bursts.” Taking us across thousands of miles of dreamscape and literal landscape, Recurring Dream oneirically links up American imperialism, transgression and incarceration, satellite imagery and opulent jewelry. “Proof is an object we catch with our senses,” McGinnis writes, though mystery is still there, warmly “curled among facts.” A feast for the intelligence.   –Laura Kolbe, author of The Decadent Movement

TO ORDER: finishinglinepress.com/produ… In her second poetry chapbook Nine Months of Kimchi and Crying, Trish Broome takes readers on a heartfelt journey focused on loss, grief, motherhood, and culture. Through firsthand experiences and detailed memories, Broome details the deeply emotional nine-month journey following her mother’s unexpected death. From crying in a parking lot in Newport News, Virginia, to eating noodles in a Korean restaurant in Ellicott City, Maryland, her journey reminds us that even though grief may be overwhelming, we can turn that darkness into a light that radiates with the loved one’s memory. In short, this is a love story dedicated to a mother whom Broome deeply admired and respected. #poetry #motherhood #grief #loss #culture Trish Broome is a half-Korean writer and poet who grew up in Newport News, Virginia. Nine Months of Kimchi and Crying, her second chapbook, is dedicated to the mother she lost unexpectedly in July 2024. Her poetry is featured in You Might Need to Hear This, Half and One, Cure Today, Yellow Arrow “AMPLIFY” Vignette, SLAM, Performance Poetry from the Underrepresented, Novus Literary Arts Journal, Miscreant Anthology, and Voicemail Poems. Find her on Instagram @trishb.poetry

A Poem by Trish Broome paddockreview.com/2026/10/22… #poetry #life #kimchi #comfortfood #mothers @trishb.poetry

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Not I by Jane Saginaw   On SALE:    finishinglinepress.com/produ…   #Holocaust, #polio, #history, #Jewish, #motherdaughter PRAISE:   Jane Saginaw‘s Not I is a terrific book.  An extraordinary book.  Not your typical post-Holocaust book.  Using a structure like Edgar Lee Masters’ 1915 American masterpiece Spoon River Anthology, Saginaw gives us the voices of thirty European Jewish women, full of life and vivacity, telling bits of their stories lifted from the past–with lyric beauty, authenticity, even occasional comedy. Their dates tell us that some are gone; some are still alive at the time of publication.  The poet speaks for them. One says, “I had been raised with two maids and a cook.” One  says, “I was somersaults and jacks./ In the morning I practiced scales.”  One was a partisan, another a plumber taught by a grandfather.  One takes the form of a page of Talmud. Several recall the camps.  One describes dancing on her first night in Poland, with her head shaved and the numbers on her arm burning, for a “metal-faced” man whom we understand to be Josef Mengele.  The figures in this book, including the author writing autobiographically,  are alive as you and me.  They ask to be heard, seen, known, recognized, remembered. –Alicia Ostriker, author of The Holy and Broken Bliss . “Not I brings to life the fully-rounded experience of women whose lives occupy a corner of Jane Saginaw’s own inner being. With deftly rendered detail of memory,  sensory experience and emotion, she invites her reader to be, for a moment, not I but you, and through that, you become part of another and of her. You will be engaged, transported and transformed by these powerful poems.” –Alan Morinis, Founder, The Mussar Institute . “In this powerful and deeply original poetry collection, Jane Saginaw gives voice to women whose lives, losses, and inner worlds continue to reverberate across generations. This striking collection connects women not only to one another, but also to the reader, and to the enduring contemporary relevance of Holocaust memory. With vivid, contemplative language and innovative form, these poems move between tenderness and terror, music and death, daily life and unimaginable rupture. In doing so, they capture not only the atrocities of the Holocaust, but also the fragile beauty of the ordinary worlds that preceded, endured, and echoed beyond it. Moving across histories, geographies, and generations—from Monastir to Budapest to Warsaw, and into Saginaw’s own coming-of-age as a young Jewish girl in the 1970s and beyond—these poems illuminate the interconnectedness of life, pain, resilience, and remembrance. These poems are not only acts of remembrance but acts of intimate witnessing, allowing often forgotten women to speak again, while also reflecting the poet’s own journey. This is a powerful, original, and deeply affecting collection. Saginaw’s poems invite the reader into an intimate encounter with the women at their center, allowing their voices to linger long after the page is turned. This is a haunting, innovative, and unforgettable collection.” –Sarah Valente, Newman Director, Wasserman Jewish Studies Center Baruch College, City University of New York . In Not I‘s opening poem, Saginaw implies that her American life renders her ill equipped to speak of the Shoah. Yet, in the tender persona poems that follow, Saginaw provides intimate and deeply moving vignettes depicting the lives of a handful of female survivors. Along the way, this wise poet skillfully weaves in her own rich story of a very different kind of survival across the ocean. –Yehoshua November    Please share/please repost  #flp #booktok #poetry #chapbook

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: the woman in my Relationship with Life by Loria Harris   On SALE:    finishinglinepress.com/produ…   the woman in my Relationship with Life explores the frustrations and joys of womanhood in a modern but still constrained world. Through intense imagery and biting language, themes emerge that range from relationships and sexuality to spirituality, loss and abuse, identification with nature, motherhood, and the asinine expectation to behave as if a woman’s struggles are a thing of the past—or a secret to be kept. Free verse lines dally with convention and rhyme and ultimately assert their own sense of form, much as a woman claims her own voice. #feminist #poetry #book #womanhood #motherhood #nature   Loria Harris is a Pushcart-nominated author whose works of poetry and fiction are published in Rogue Agent, Oyster River Pages, Winged Penny Review, Club Plum, JAKE, and others. In 2022, she received the Alyson Dickerman Poetry Prize and the Jim Haba Poetry Award. Loria holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, where her fiction was nominated for the MFA in Writing Award and she currently serves as an adjunct instructor.  @looksbooksandloria @loriaharris PRAISE:   “An unsentimental exploration of womanhood, power, and becoming. With language both fierce and luminous, Harris invokes transformation and insists that a woman’s selfhood is not bestowed, but claimed.” –Danielle Coffyn, Pushcart Prize-winning author of If Adam Picked the Apple   “Loria Harris‘s the woman in my Relationship with Life is a vital addition to the poetry of female experience. In these precise and gripping verses, the roles women carry, by choice, necessity, or force, are interrogated. Harris’s deft verse reminds us of the need to speak, as they also ask ‘to not/ stop the silence.’ In a world always seeking to label, Harris’s stunning collection claims the right to self-define, as her poem asserts, ‘I’m forbidden. I’m the woman in my relationship with life.'” –Shana Youngdahl, author of A Cage to Welcome   “Loria Harris crafts a fierce, unflinching exploration of womanhood that refuses easy categories. These poems—raw, lyrical, and unapologetic—confront the body’s hungers and burdens, the myths of motherhood, the quiet rebellions of silence, and the wild, untamed pulse of existence itself.” –Lisa Haag, author of A Benign Sort of Cannibalism, winner of the 2014 Clockwise poetry chapbook competition   Please share/please repost  #flp #booktok #poetry #chapbook

TO ORDER: finishinglinepress.com/produ… Housedresses is a debut chapbook of twenty-two poems that frames a young Appalachian girl’s coming of age in a world that is new, exciting, and often unsafe. Without much guidance from teenage parents, she navigates her way, finding assistance from family and friends who fill in the gaps. She often feels alone in an era when problems weren’t discussed, and mental health wasn’t addressed. In the midst of alcoholism and violence, she rises with the tools of faith, books, and education.#appalachia, #poetry, #comingofage, #housedresses, #perseverance, alcoholism Sharon Smith Shadrick is a retired teacher and full-time writer. She has been published in the Women of Appalachia Project Anthology, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Appalachia Bare, Mildred Haun Review, and Kakalak 2025. Her co-written book, The Power of a Paper Clip, was released in the fall of 2024. She lives in Dunlap, Tennessee with her husband and three rescue dogs. @skshadrick

A Poem by Sharon Smith Shadrick paddockreview.com/2026/10/21… #poetry #life #family #house #dresses @skshadrick

FLP BOOK OF THE DAY: Inner Spaced by Hannah Arvanigian   On SALE:    finishinglinepress.com/produ…   Inner Spaced is a poetry collection that journeys through the landscapes of the mind using lush natural imagery, mythic creatures, and surreal transformations. Through shifting tones that range from tender and introspective to sharp and irreverent, the collection explores identity, resilience, joy, and self-discovery. The poems depict two sides of the human mind which wedges itself into everyday life—the outer full of generalizations and inner which is oftentimes intrusive and unforgiving. Ordinary moments such as feeding birds, watching slush melt, walking through woods are significant and create a sense of magic. The collection is open into imaginative portals where language becomes tactile and alive. Inner Spaced ultimately invites readers to confront uncertainty, embrace vulnerability, and recognize both sides of the mind: chaos and growth. #poetry #nature #mindful #dinosaur #discovery   Hannah is a Michigan-based poet and MFA student specializing in poetry while also teaching Writing Composition. Her work often explores the complexities of the human mind through vivid natural imagery, driven by a passion for delivering meaningful messages to readers. She shares writing updates and creative adventures on Instagram, where she connects with fellow artists and readers. @Hannah_E_Seelman. PRAISE: . The poems in this delicately beautiful book, Inner Spaced by Hannah Arvanigian, sing. This Michigan-based poet moves from image to image with deft and grace, exploring the intricacies of the human condition as well as giving sweet Mary Oliver-esque vibrations in her nature poems. Arvanigian’s poetic star is steadily rising.   –Shonda Buchanan, author of The Lost Songs of Nina Simone, Black Indian and Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country   Please share/please repost   #booktok #poetry #FLP #book

TO ORDER: finishinglinepress.com/produ… Mammoth Life & Accident is an autobiography in verse. It’s divided into five sections: the first, Everywhere Sorrow Looks Like This, is mainly about childhood griefs and losses; in the second section, It Would Have Been Better Had We Never Met, the poems cover difficult romantic relationships as well as gender identity; the third and fourth sections, Mammoth Life & Accident, and Our Bodies in Their Fragility, are centered on disability and illness; the poems in section five, Going Forth by Day, however, are joyous, an embrace of family and community. #Loss #Trauma #Relationships #GenderIdentity #Disability Illness Family NewYorkCity Adoption Avra Wing‘s poems have appeared in numerous journals including New Ohio Review, Image, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Santa Fe Review. She is the author of two novels: Angie, I Says, a New York Times “notable book” made into the film Angie, and After Isaac, for young adults. Avra leads a writing workshop at the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, New York. She can be found at avrawing.com and facebook.com/avra.wing.5 @avbklyn

A Poem by Avra Wing paddockreview.com/2026/10/20… #life #loss #grief #poetry