Nights, when we lay next to each other in the tiny cot
minnows swam in my body.
It was uncomfortable with pleasure.
In this tender collection, Stephanie Staab investigates the ways our words bring us together and pull us apart. Whether navigating a father’s funeral, a breakup, or a crush on a handyman, the poems remind us of the fraught nature of intimacy and the nostalgia that drives the everyday. The reader senses a gentle urgency to the questions of how to think about desire and collective memory. Talking embraces the vulnerability of holding people close while charting one’s own path in identity and love.
Stephanie Staab is a poet living in Alsace, France. Her poems have recently appeared in Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, New Ohio Review, Gulf Coast, Lake Effect, Salamander, and Crab Creek Review among other publications. She is a poetry reader for Ploughshares.
Nights, when we lay next to each other in the tiny cot
minnows swam in my body.
It was uncomfortable with pleasure.
In this tender collection, Stephanie Staab investigates the ways our words bring us together and pull us apart. Whether navigating a father’s funeral, a breakup, or a crush on a handyman, the poems remind us of the fraught nature of intimacy and the nostalgia that drives the everyday. The reader senses a gentle urgency to the questions of how to think about desire and collective memory. Talking embraces the vulnerability of holding people close while charting one’s own path in identity and love.
Stephanie Staab is a poet living in Alsace, France. Her poems have recently appeared in Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, New Ohio Review, Gulf Coast, Lake Effect, Salamander, and Crab Creek Review among other publications. She is a poetry reader for Ploughshares.
Title: Talking
Author: Stephanie Staab
Publisher: Rockwood Press
Released: 2025 - October
Format: chapbook, acid-free paper, silk cover
Pages: 34
Price: $10
ISBN: 978-1-59498-185-2
