Elemental Undress, by Elizabeth Porter

Poetry, chapbook, 24 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

This collection of poems begins with the blurred, celestial landscapes of grief and final moments, but concludes with resilience and adventure. The poems conjure interstellar elements such as hissing meteorites and a grasping, hand-shaped nebula while maintaining a foothold in familiar, heavy landscapes such as hospital rooms and wakes.

Spiraling out from the ocean floor of rock-bottom, subsequent poems address a longing for connection, broken promises, plenty of mischief, and a speaker at peace with solitude. The final poems, inspired by Porter’s solo-backpacking adventures, climb ridgelines in Appalachia, exalting in the terror and thrills of the natural world. Mythic and archetypal imagery join in these pieces with a common goal: to inspire perseverance and make peace with an unalterable past.

The poems in this collection include a combination of prose poetry, free verse, and micropoems, allowing each narrative to assume the form it requires. The poem “Stolen Spoon” was nominated in November 2023 for The Pushcart Prize by orangepeel literary magazine.

Elizabeth Porter (she/her) is a poet and high school teacher in south-central Pennsylvania, where she runs a poetry club and is perpetually inspired by the brilliance of her students. She enjoys writing imagist poetry inspired by adventures and misadventures in solo-backpacking, kayaking, and camping with her children. Her work has appeared in Ballast, Jersey Devil Press, Unbroken, Full House Literary, Dunes Review, and elsewhere. She is currently working toward an MFA at Lindenwood University. Follow Elizabeth on Instagram @elizabethporter.ink and find links to her published work at www.elizabethporter.ink