The Biology of Leaving is a chapbook about rupture (personal, ecological, and political) and the tender, uneasy lives that grow from it. Candice M. Kelsey writes through divorce, relocation, extinction, and state violence with a voice that balances lyric precision and moral urgency. These poems move from intimate domestic moments to burning landscapes and public reckoning, tracing how bodies endure loss and attempt regeneration. Grief here is not static but active, thinking, watchful. Dedicated to Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, this collection asks what responsibility survives after love, home, and certainty are broken and how we keep living anyway.
What Kelsey’s characters have to say about the collection:
“I wish she hadn’t brought me into American politics. I’ve got enough to worry about.” —Medea
“Kelsey cannot fully grasp what it is to move through the world without needing a story, yet she writes with reverence, and I must admit: she comes closer than most.” —The American Pelecinid Wasp
“I’ll tolerate the clever chaos she makes of my language.” —Herman Melville’s ghost
“Somehow, she captures my philosopher-queen stealth better than anyone else.” —Winston, the Cat
The Biology of Leaving is a chapbook about rupture (personal, ecological, and political) and the tender, uneasy lives that grow from it. Candice M. Kelsey writes through divorce, relocation, extinction, and state violence with a voice that balances lyric precision and moral urgency. These poems move from intimate domestic moments to burning landscapes and public reckoning, tracing how bodies endure loss and attempt regeneration. Grief here is not static but active, thinking, watchful. Dedicated to Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, this collection asks what responsibility survives after love, home, and certainty are broken and how we keep living anyway.
What Kelsey’s characters have to say about the collection:
“I wish she hadn’t brought me into American politics. I’ve got enough to worry about.” —Medea
“Kelsey cannot fully grasp what it is to move through the world without needing a story, yet she writes with reverence, and I must admit: she comes closer than most.” —The American Pelecinid Wasp
“I’ll tolerate the clever chaos she makes of my language.” —Herman Melville’s ghost
“Somehow, she captures my philosopher-queen stealth better than anyone else.” —Winston, the Cat
Title: The Biology of Leaving
Author: Candice M. Kelsey
Publisher: Rockwood Press
Released: 2026 - March
Format: chapbook, acid-free paper, silk cover
Pages: 48
Price: $10
ISBN: 978-1-59498-207-1
