As the title suggests, the poems in Apocalypse Rainbow journey through a landscape between disaster and hope, past and future, grief and love, hurt and forgiveness. Schnaithmann’s lyrical voice is clear, direct, brave: “Sometimes I write difficult things. / Other times, I think about the bees in the lavender.” Between the two, Schnaithmann weaves calamity and beauty into compact moments that seek ways to live with the unadorned truth of both.
—Hayden Saunier
“Speak now, or forever—” is the last line of one of the powerful poems in Louisa Schnaithmann’s Apocalypse Rainbow. We can infer the rest: “hold your peace.” But the ellipsis suggests another possibility: that we should continue to speak about difficult subjects. Schnaithmann does so masterfully throughout this collection, probing childhood trauma, relationships, sexuality, loss, ambivalence, and “the problem of the body.” She uncovers terrible pain, yes, but also—“in the after-storm”—terrible beauty. “There is a song being sung here,” and it is a pleasure to hear Louisa Schnaithmann sing it.
—Erin Murphy, author of Swoon: New & Selected Poems
Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Arts Center, 2020). Her work has appeared in Eunoia Review, Gargoyle, The Summerset Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere. She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Title: Apocalypse Rainbow
Author: Louisa Schnaithmann
Publisher: Rockwood Press
Released: 2026 - September
Format: chapbook, acid-free paper, silk cover
Pages: 50
Price: $10
ISBN: 978-1-59498-248-4
As the title suggests, the poems in Apocalypse Rainbow journey through a landscape between disaster and hope, past and future, grief and love, hurt and forgiveness. Schnaithmann’s lyrical voice is clear, direct, brave: “Sometimes I write difficult things. / Other times, I think about the bees in the lavender.” Between the two, Schnaithmann weaves calamity and beauty into compact moments that seek ways to live with the unadorned truth of both.
—Hayden Saunier
“Speak now, or forever—” is the last line of one of the powerful poems in Louisa Schnaithmann’s Apocalypse Rainbow. We can infer the rest: “hold your peace.” But the ellipsis suggests another possibility: that we should continue to speak about difficult subjects. Schnaithmann does so masterfully throughout this collection, probing childhood trauma, relationships, sexuality, loss, ambivalence, and “the problem of the body.” She uncovers terrible pain, yes, but also—“in the after-storm”—terrible beauty. “There is a song being sung here,” and it is a pleasure to hear Louisa Schnaithmann sing it.
—Erin Murphy, author of Swoon: New & Selected Poems
Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Arts Center, 2020). Her work has appeared in Eunoia Review, Gargoyle, The Summerset Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere. She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Title: Apocalypse Rainbow
Author: Louisa Schnaithmann
Publisher: Rockwood Press
Released: 2026 - September
Format: chapbook, acid-free paper, silk cover
Pages: 50
Price: $10
ISBN: 978-1-59498-248-4
