BIG CONGRATULATIONS TO YELLOW SWEATER ON THE PUBLICATION OF SPIKENARD!
In May 2022, YWP's Yellow Sweater (Zinnia Hansen) achieved a writer's dream with the publication of her first book of poetry, Spikenard. Zinnia – Seattle's 2021/22 Youth Poet Laureate – tells us, "the seeds of the book sprouted on this website ... this book literally wouldn't even be a thought without YWP."
On Tiny Writes, May 17, 2022, Yellow Sweater wrote to the YWP community: "Hey y'all my book, Spikenard, is officially available for preorder!!! I can't believe it actually exists. This book seriously wouldn't even be a thought if it wasn't for this community. Many of the poems were first conceived in their nascent form on this website. Here is the link if you want to check it out!! https://www.poetrynw.org/editions/seattle-youth-poet-laureate-series/
Check it out here!
And send kudos to Yellow Sweater!
From the Poetry Northwest announcement:
"The seventh collection in the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Series, Spikenard is a philosophical contemplation of family, religion, and the reverential observations of an interior mind. This collection was written in partnership with the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate program, a program of Seattle Arts & Lectures."
Praise for Spikenard
“Light on light on light . . . burning beautifully,” Zinnia Hansen makes a shining debut with this luminous collection, a potent distillation of “every beautiful thought at once.”
—Rena Priest, Washington State Poet Laureate ’21–23
“I took a hammer/ to my words,/ but forgot the nails,” Zinnia Hansen writes in her debut collection. As each poem alternately sprawls and condenses, breathes horizontal and compresses down, a form of worship emerges at the nexus of watching a world burn and wondering “who is going to cut a hole in the/ horizon and let out the smoke,” feeling aging turn in on itself and begin again like “Russian nesting dolls filled with moist earth,” and finding reverence in the paradoxes of transcendental awe and a desire “to burn the/ garden God planted in my belly.” The book transforms into its own cathedral of sun and the particular smell of Pacific Northwest trees—and, as it examples how “even love is a form of deconstruction,” you are invited in to be transformed with it.”
—C. R. Grimmer, author of The Lyme Letters
Zinnia Hansen finds love in artichokes, salmon, and the yellow sign “telling you to slow as you drive down our neighborhood road,” and mystery in the mother who “captures the weather of the world in a cup.” She falls asleep “reading about duende; reading, radiating duende” and struggles to make peace with the body, the question of God, and the persistent uncertainty of belief. Here is a beautiful young mind writing her way into the great conversation. Read Spikenard and celebrate.
—Kathleen Flenniken, author of Post Romantic
In May 2022, YWP's Yellow Sweater (Zinnia Hansen) achieved a writer's dream with the publication of her first book of poetry, Spikenard. Zinnia – Seattle's 2021/22 Youth Poet Laureate – tells us, "the seeds of the book sprouted on this website ... this book literally wouldn't even be a thought without YWP."
On Tiny Writes, May 17, 2022, Yellow Sweater wrote to the YWP community: "Hey y'all my book, Spikenard, is officially available for preorder!!! I can't believe it actually exists. This book seriously wouldn't even be a thought if it wasn't for this community. Many of the poems were first conceived in their nascent form on this website. Here is the link if you want to check it out!! https://www.poetrynw.org/editions/seattle-youth-poet-laureate-series/
Check it out here!
And send kudos to Yellow Sweater!
From the Poetry Northwest announcement:
"The seventh collection in the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Series, Spikenard is a philosophical contemplation of family, religion, and the reverential observations of an interior mind. This collection was written in partnership with the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate program, a program of Seattle Arts & Lectures."
Praise for Spikenard
“Light on light on light . . . burning beautifully,” Zinnia Hansen makes a shining debut with this luminous collection, a potent distillation of “every beautiful thought at once.”
—Rena Priest, Washington State Poet Laureate ’21–23
“I took a hammer/ to my words,/ but forgot the nails,” Zinnia Hansen writes in her debut collection. As each poem alternately sprawls and condenses, breathes horizontal and compresses down, a form of worship emerges at the nexus of watching a world burn and wondering “who is going to cut a hole in the/ horizon and let out the smoke,” feeling aging turn in on itself and begin again like “Russian nesting dolls filled with moist earth,” and finding reverence in the paradoxes of transcendental awe and a desire “to burn the/ garden God planted in my belly.” The book transforms into its own cathedral of sun and the particular smell of Pacific Northwest trees—and, as it examples how “even love is a form of deconstruction,” you are invited in to be transformed with it.”
—C. R. Grimmer, author of The Lyme Letters
Zinnia Hansen finds love in artichokes, salmon, and the yellow sign “telling you to slow as you drive down our neighborhood road,” and mystery in the mother who “captures the weather of the world in a cup.” She falls asleep “reading about duende; reading, radiating duende” and struggles to make peace with the body, the question of God, and the persistent uncertainty of belief. Here is a beautiful young mind writing her way into the great conversation. Read Spikenard and celebrate.
—Kathleen Flenniken, author of Post Romantic
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May 26, 2022
This is so amazing! Congratulations! I will definitely be buying your book :)
Life is not a paragraph.