Tiny Altars: Poems on Grieving and Beholding - Hardcover

Tiny Altars: Poems on Grief and Beholding, is centered around experiences of grief and loss in liminal spaces. It is an exploration in saying and doing more with less, a common necessity in times of grief and sorrow. The poems herein are deeply interested in the grief experience, the ways in which it asks to be witnessed and beheld, and the internal conflicts that are presented when we have no witnesses for our grief. Here, the words act as witnesses, and they also find other witnesses in our lives that can emerge when we least expect them to.

This offering of poems is deeply interested in scarcity, in the rendering of few words. They are interested in the psychical contradictions that can emerge when we stand before thresholds, and spaces of transitionality, with a prolific grief in our body and heart that feels altar-worthy. It is in these quiet spaces where something like sacred presence can feel difficult, sometimes impossible, to come by. So, it is here that I have offered up my few words, and these few words have served as smoke signals into a dark night, a way to feel my pain, honor it, and acknowledge its sanctity.

In the precipice moments, I have offered up my cries in the form of poetry. They have been the candles and the flowers that formed my grief altars. They are also a way to commune with the spirit of my ancestors, who I believe are my greatest and deepest witnesses.