Please celebrate with me as I share that my newest book Wolves in Shells, chosen by Tomás Q. Morín as the winner of the 2024 Backwaters Prize in Poetry from University of Nebraska Press now has a beautiful cover is available for pre-order!
Says Morín, “Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest is a piercing rebuke of ‘our dependency on machinery/ that harms us. That machinery is patriarchy, marriage, and gender inequality. A blistering chronicle of a life lost—children, home, health—and regained. Muriel Rukeyser asked, ‘What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?/ The world would split open.’ Each of these poems moves with the honesty of an ax.”
The mandala on the cover is my own creation composed of shells, rocks, seaweed, and driftwood scavenged, mostly, from the beautiful states of Michigan and Maine. Dedicated to my daughter, this book pays homage to the territories of my wanderings and the women of my future and history. A modern monomyth, Wolves in Shells tells the story of a woman navigating homelessness, trauma, and memories as she attempts to leave a violent partner. Reflecting on her familial heritage, this survivor grapples with the way she, the women of her history, and her daughter have been conditioned to accommodate the demands of the male ego and predation.
Reflective, clear-eyed, and incisive, the poems of Wolves in Shells also feature O-Six, a wolf born into the rewilding territory of Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s who serves as a metaphor for women who must cope with violence and survive on their own. Drawing from Gaston Bachelard’s quote “wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones,” the narrative considers how survival requires a balance of protectiveness, risk, trust, and escape.
Pre-order your copy today!
Updated: Apr 6
Hey New Englanders! What are you doing the evening of April 11?
Nothing? Great!! Because I’ve got an event for you!
Cello music, poetry conversation, & free libations await at my book launch for TETHER & LUNG on Friday, April 11 at 6:30 pm at Mechanic's Hall in Portland, Maine. Most importantly, the wonderful local poet Robert Carr will be joining me with his new book BLUE MEMENTO and we promise an evening of startling, sensuous poems as we investigate the freedoms and constraints of the body, both desired and desiring.
Ticket information for the event can be found on the Mechanic's Hall website.
Please join us! We’d love to see you there!
