Smolder
June 22, 2026 | Ex Ophidia Press | 979–9–885711–90–2
Smolder takes its title from a diagnosis the author’s husband received two decades ago, of smoldering multiple myeloma–a treatable but incurable blood cancer. At the time, in this early stage of illness, the prescribed treatment was to watch and wait for myeloma to cause problems. Plucked from the natural world and placed among arid clinical terms and bewildering medical advice, this lush word–smolder–sparks a collection of poems about the many kinds of fire blazing inside a life. Fires of grief, lust, loss, rage, uncertainty and acceptance. The poems in Smolder are about tending to aliveness. They’re love poems elegies, prayers, howls, meditations. Together, they illuminate what it means to live with the open flame of a tender heart.