Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility - Paperback

by Anna Laura Reeve (Author)

The poems in Anna Laura Reeve's debut collection, Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility, are wide-ranging in subject-postpartum depression, ecopoetics, creative manifestoes-yet all are rooted in the Southern Appalachia sprawl that she has made her home. Seeing motherhood as a primal rite of passage that need not be a single destination, the speaker of these poems taps into universal questions of identity and myth-making, allowing metaphors to work their magic as the rituals of caring for our land, our loved ones, and our bodies combine in startling ways. She transcends expectations by discovering a third way for the mother-artist that embraces her parenthood and her art as equally vital to a life well lived. As a result, Reeve's poems evoke a raw sensibility unafraid of the wildness inherent in the struggles of home, family, and an environment just as vulnerable-and resilient-to change as she discovers herself to be.

Author Biography

Anna Laura Reeve is a poet born and raised in East Tennessee. Winner of the 2022 Adrienne Rich Award, her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Terrain.org, ROOM, Still, and others. She has an MA in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.