Excavating A Relationship, by Dana I. Hunter

Poetry, chapbook, 24 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Dana I. Hunter’s Excavating A Relationship presents a journey of poems that search for acceptance from another rather than oneself. Dana presents love in its many forms and immerses the reader in its pursuit despite the pain it may inflict. Dana has created a flow of poetic situations of self-discovery. From empty and controlling relationships depicted in ‘Watching Nobody’ and ‘Thai and Todd’. The internal question, ‘Are you strong enough,’ and others, where you have fallen so deeply that you have lost yourself in the process of being in love with love.

Dana I. Hunter possesses the ability to lead us poetically through desperation, sexual desire, loneliness, and self–discovery. The poems flow from one poetic situation to the next, ending with a declaration of inner strength.

Dana I. Hunter (she/her), a top poet in the NAMI NJ: Dara Axelrod Expressive Arts Poetry Contest, has been featured in Heather Stivison’s Ekphrasis! at Pleiades Gallery in NYC; published in The Decolonial Passage Literary Magazine ‘(Summer 2025), Songs of Eretz Poetry Review (Summer, 2025), The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, table/FEAST Literary Magazine and Open Minds Quarterly. Dana has a B.A. in Communications from Upsala College. She is an African American poet living and writing in New Jersey, U.S.A.