She Loves me, She Loves me Not by Madari Pendas

“You can read She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not by Madari Pendas for the individual, finely grown flowers or for the collective, revelatory bouquet. However you read, this collection is a fresh-cut rumination on queer identity, one speaker’s intimate, coming-out journey and her love and loss of one particular woman. Sepal: “she retracts like a bad instinct/ when I kiss her the next day.” Sepal: “One last letter./ It still begins with dear. My new partner asks me to burn it.” Sepal: “she tells me/ that petunias as a gift mean anger,//not all flowers make good presents.” In contrast, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not will make a beautiful gift. Give this book to someone you love.”

–Julie Marie Wade, author of When I Was Straight, Same-Sexy Marriage: A Novella in Poems,and Skirted

In She Loves me, She Loves me Not, Madari Pendas plants the superstitious childhood game firmly into verse and lets it grow with startling results. She celebrates queer love and desire, from childhood sleepovers to mature and complicated relationships. Flowers sensuously round the book, like garland, metaphorically deepening as each poem blooms. When love ends in betrayal, Pendas gives us instructions for pressing and drying roses—”Close the book/& set a weight/on top.” Readers don’t need to pull daisy petals to know Pendas loves poetry—and it loves her.  She Loves me, She Loves me Not is a gorgeous bouquet of a debut!

 —Denise Duhamel