We Are Now the Thing in the Woods, by Lauren Parker

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

We Are Now the Thing in the Woods is about transience and how roots are undone and replanted. Moving from rural to an urban area, these poems explore the delicate and brutalism of isolation, nature, danger, heartbreak, and the meaty tenderness of rebuilding tradition.

Written in the years the author moved from the rural Midwest, to rural New England, to the Bay Area, Thing in the Woods explores the monsters that environments force us to become, especially while on the run.

Lauren Parker is a narrative poet whose work focuses on love, sex, nature, and the sharp link of human connection and isolation. She is a writer, zinemaker, and visual artist in Oakland, California. She’s a graduate of Hiram College’s Creative Writing program and has written for the Toast, Strange Horizons, The Racket, Xtra Magazine, Catapult, and Autostraddle. She’s the winner of the Summer of Love essay contest in the Daily Californian, the Vachel Lindsay poetry prize, and is the author of the forthcoming deck of spells with Simon Element. You can find her at her website laureneparker.com