Queen in Blue is now available wherever books are sold!
Read the Publisher’s Weekly review here!
Praise For Queen In Blue
“The work of an important new voice. These poems are transcendent and haunting. The breathtaking associative, spiritual, and psychological acrobatics in this poetry are not decorative or experimental or performative. The artistry here is a magician’s. She changes us. A reader could ask no more of any collection of poems.”—Laura Kasischke, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
“Hemsell gets it. She has written an incredible debut that anyone who plans to tend to our beloveds or our beloved earth in the coming days simply must read. This is the eco-poetics we need in the world. Don’t let the beauty distract you from the call to action.”—Danez Smith, author of Don’t Call Us Dead
“At once a splendor of lyricism and a contemplative account of lineage, otherness, and ethnicity. Hemsell’s extraordinary verbal deftness precisely locates the still-tender pains and triumphs of being a mother, a daughter, and a lover while still trying to be an individual in the world.”—Airea D. Matthews, author of Simulacra
Journal Publications:
The Index Press: “Octopus Salad”
The Index Press: “Whale Fall”
Narrative Magazine: “Nightjar”
Narrative Magazine: “Intertext”
Poet Lore: “Foxglove”
RHINO: “Fire Season”
South Carolina Review: “Hydrangea Blue” and “Sex in the Anthropocene”
Wildness: “future amaranth”
Wildness Eco Folio: “Party Poem”
Fairy Tale Review: “Queen of Hearts” and “Libra Season”
Columbia Journal: “The Wanting”
The American Literary Review: “Son” and “Rome”
Virga: “For the Light”
Ruminate: “Passport”
So To Speak: “origami”
The Florida Review: “witness to a chain of bursting”
RipRap: “joy”