Traci Brimhall

Upcoming Book

Fiercely self-aware and utterly “present tense,” Traci Brimhall’s Love Prodigal lives in the messiness of starting over. As the poet grieves a divorce and a new diagnosis, cycles of heartbreak, family trauma, and chronic pain appear. Throughout the collection, images of the phoenix seem to promise another kind of cycle—an easy and endless resurrection. But Brimhall says, Screw that! She’d rather reach for the slow, messy, and imperfect process of healing. She finds strength in the beauty of the natural world, in motherhood, in desire, in new love, in “a thousand small pleasures that made [her] want to live.” Through aubades, a crown of prose sonnets, and other forms, Love Prodigal says yes to second (and third and fourth) chances. The heart gets bigger every time it heals.