Yearnings by Stephanie Harper

While Harper’s collection may seem quiet and meditative at first glance, the crux of Yearnings lies in the sharp and needful undercurrent the title suggests. With tight, concise lines and grounded imagery that leads you by the hand into its dark and hungry heart, this is a book for those who feel deeply, love wholly, and see the world in signs, in poems. We have all wanted, all needed, all hoped–Harper’s universality is only strengthened by her incisive and singular storytelling. Yearnings gives all of itself, word count be damned.

–Devon Bohm, author of the poetry collection Careful Cartography 

Stephanie Harper‘s rhetorically deft poems are written with the emotional sincerity of a poet who has dared to love with unnerving vulnerability. At once heartbreaking and illuminating, these poems explore the blurry boundaries of the paradoxically beautiful and broken, the reserved and ravenous, and the novel and nostalgic relationships we both fear and crave. Let this deceptively small collection be the forthcoming generation’s comprehensive guide through and authenticator of modern love.

–T.E. Hahn, author of the Kirkus Star Awarded Novel Open My Eyes