Kimberly Ann Priest’s fifth poetry collection tether & lung (Texas Review Press, 2025) is a fierce, dynamic, and deeply personal collection about grief, forgiveness, fury, and sexuality. tether & lung has an intensity that is at once severe, haunting, and tender. Priest’s work is often focused on gender-based trauma and domestic ecologies, and this collection is no departure from that. Divided into four sub-sections, “The Gelding,” “Her Hand,” “A Tether,” and “Of Lungs,” tether & lung indulges in what it means to be a sensual, yet brutal woman facing the aftermath of heartbreak—but not the kind you are thinking of. 

Lush with nature personification, tether & lung employs nature as a way to reckon with one’s own feelings. Horses, barns, as well as vivid imagery of the surrounding planes of rural Michigan invite readers into Priest’s home. Nature becomes an anchor that Priest uses to connect her own suffering with that of her husband’s. The natural world around Priest and her family, as well as a particular horse, “The Gelding,” become characters of their own in the collection, dictating the direction of Priest’s journey of healing. An additional foundation of the collection lies heavily in the ecodomestic setting surrounding Priest and her family. A narrative foundation underpins Tether and Lung, which tells the story of Priest’s husband emerging into his sexuality, disrupting her marriage. Her children are integrated into several poems, filling in a portrait of Priest’s very own domestic ecology, such as in “We Dance” and “On Needing Someone to Be a Little Like God.” Themes of grief, compassion, gender, sexuality, divorce, and motherhood ebb and flow throughout the collection. 

A striking echoing of 24th Poet Laureate Ada Limon’s work appears in tether & lung. While reading this sensual, melancholic collection, I couldn’t help but think of Limon’s own interest with horses (“How to Triumph Like a Girl) and tendency to dwell on the mundane features of nature in order to illustrate a larger pain. Much to my delight, Limon is mentioned in one of the poems, “Gomorrah”! Specifically Bright Dead Things (Mildweed Editions, 2015) is quoted: “There are dead things—bright dead things says the poet / Ada Limón—in my flower sink” (Priest 55). This allusion is sharp and well-done, and a similar evocative style leads Priest’s collection to affect readers in similar ways as Limon’s work.

While Limon lingers in the pages of tether & lung, Brenda Shaughnessy poem “Our Andromeda” comes to mind along the topics of pregnancy and motherhood in Priest’s poetry. Shaughnessy writes, “We will find our kind in Andromeda, / we will become our true selves. / I will be the mother who / never hurt you, and you will have your / childhood back in full blossom, / whole hog. Wherein Shaughnessy focuses on wanting a different path for her son, Priest writes about how her children are affected by their father. Her children’s relationship with their father is explored as well as her own challenges with parenting. This was, perhaps, the most surprising feature of tether & lung. Priest’s children embody a small space in the collection, one that is potent with the malleability of childhood, the importance of receiving support from an early age.

These poems are filled with kindness and a deep sense of introspection that will be sure to impress readers. Poems “The Good Wife,” “After My Husband Tells Me He is Gay, My Body Contemplates Suicide,” “Nest,” and “A Most Harmless Hour” are, in my opinion, the strongest poems in the collection, the poems that conveyed the most impressive sense of vulnerability, intimacy, and power through Priest’s voice. For readers who enjoy the combination of narrative driven stories and symbolic language and the natural world, tether & lung is sure to inspire. 

The poems within tether & lung spark a deeper conversation on gender and sexuality. Priest’s exploration of sexuality, and of her husband’s, is gentle and intimate. Even bold at times. She elaborates on the plasticity that surrounds her own relationship with her husband. In a particularly beautiful poem, “A Young Man is Beautiful,” Priest writes,

The courage of Priest’s own emotional journey is tested as poems like this depict the dialectical nature of forgiveness, or change. Priest is able to detest her husband, while also allowing space to grieve and love the man she once knew, and still does. 

Beyond anything else, though, this collection is brave. The forms undertaken in several poems, such as “Film Noir [with Car & Cigarette]”, are experimental and successful. The vulnerability required to tell the story the Priest shares with readers requires an astute sense of courage and perspective. These qualities are what makes tether & lung anything but ordinary. The collection speaks volumes on the emotional journey of healing, forgiving, and the refusal to resist loving the ones you hold close. It is brave, beautiful, and sure to affect readers looking for narrative-driven, imagery-dependent poetry.

tether & lung is available from Texas Review Press

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Emma Goss is a senior English major with minors in Film and Linguistic Anthropology. A passionate reader, she prefers to always be juggling a poetry collection, a literary fiction novel, and an audiobook. Emma is especially drawn to poetry rooted in nature symbolism and metaphor. Some of her favorite collections include The Tradition by Jericho Brown, War of the Foxes by Richard Siken, What the Living Do by Marie Howe, and Jane: A Murder by Maggie Nelson. Her poetry has been published in Pangyrus Magazine and by the Princeton Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Poetry Contest. Originally from Los Angeles, she spends her time hiking local trails or browsing the poetry shelves at Barnes & Noble Studio City when not at Vassar.

Sarah Giragosian’s Mother Octopus (Middle Creek Publishing, 2024) is a moving poetry collection that explores themes of queer intimacy, consumption, environmental collapse, phonology, lineage, and motherhood.

The collection, winner of the 2023 Halcyon Poetry Prize, first embraces readers with a haibun, “Saltonstall Residency, Ithaca, NY Haibun.” This poem is abundant in intricate, compact imagery that creates and describes the world in Mother Octopus, a world riddled with loss and grief. The haiku portion acts as a focal point: “A mother’s vast tongue / licks her calf into being, / flush with a new idea” (Giragosian 7). Giragosian highlights the bond between mother and calf while intertwining the themes of nature and the creation/degradation of environmental health. This poem, along with Giragosian’s dedication to her late mother, lingered with me throughout the collection, reminding me how deeply rooted mothers are in our ways of thinking, even as we grow independent.

A poem that especially resonated with me during my read was “Diet and Feeding Behavior of the Hagfish, Practicing Witch of the Sea,” which focuses on a hagfish’s brutality. Initially, I assumed Giragosian was writing on queer intimacy, displaying how romanticism was lost in this act of love between “her” and “I” in the poem. The speaker describes how the hagfish has “—evolved to dine and dash—” (Giragosian 57). This metaphor serves as a way to compare sapphic love to the heartlessness the hagfish has upon its prey. However, there’s a self-reflection of grief underlying here; the hagfish may serve as the speaker’s grief, devouring them from the inside out. This can be seen in the first stanza, which reads:

This hagfish devours from the inside out, wounded or compromised creatures, similarly to how grief devours humans. From my own life, I’ve experienced how grief forces one to rest and be introspective. The line “Your calm will be your counterattack” (Giragosian 57) left me feeling introspective, as I recall moments of calm and near silence have been the best opponent to depression during grief. It’s safe to say this poem has many layers and in fact encapsulates this collection as a whole in some aspects.

Returning to the theme of sapphic romance, my mind immediately remembers “Gift of Ammonite.” This poem is formally playful, almost mimicking the tides rushing back to shore— an unbreakable and natural force. This connection contradicts some of the stigma in LGBTQ+ relationships, as some claim it to be unnatural. Giragosian’s form validates the relationship and the connection, emphasizing how the speaker’s love is a force that cannot be stopped. The poem utilizes enjambment at the end of lines and stanzas, allowing it to run smoothly. Beyond form, “Gift of Ammonite” explores a relationship between two (presumably female) lovers, their profound longing for one another, and the “eons” spent waiting for the right time. I found Giragosian’s ending especially soul-crushing: “Listen for ruptures in time signature. / Wait the way you waited for her love to arrive” (62). These lines are indefinite, as they end the poem with a period, rather than continuing the pattern of enjambment and flowing seamlessly into the next poem, demonstrating both the confidence in the relationship and one another, as well as the understanding that these lovers are content to wait as long as necessary to be together. This poem was overwhelmingly confident and analytical of their love, which was refreshing and uplifting. I found this tone was abundant in the collection, and when discussing sapphic love, it was extremely validating. The vulnerability queer folk experience in everyday life is obvious, but sometimes the victories aren’t as vocalized. Mother Octopus balances both, making for an insightful read that forced me to reflect on relationships and hardships I’ve experienced at the hands of some who might not be understanding.

“Promenade à Deux” reminds me of growing up in a place where queer people are misrepresented and misunderstood. Being a dancer, I knew this poem would discuss a partnership, dance, or walk. Learning about the scorpion’s courtship while comparing interactions the speaker’s experienced with men was amazingly insightful and intricate. Growing up in rural North Carolina, I have heard—and experienced firsthand—the pressure, microaggressions, and hatred from people in a town I was to call “home.” Giragosian writes so visually, with the alliteration and personification guiding me through the piece; I could truly feel this poem and all it had to offer.

Mother Octopus was intriguing, compelling, and captivating. Giragosian created worlds within each poem that transformed my thoughts on personal experiences. With themes of grief, queer love, femininity, and environmental collapse, I truly believe there’s something for everyone in this collection. As I look back on my reads of this collection, I’m inspired to play with form and personification to propel my writing and branch out in how my writing looks and reads. Giragosian and the collection are a testament to resilience, using poetry as the vessel to express these experiences.

Mother Octopus is available from Middle Creek Publishing

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Caroline Eliza is a poet and writer from Asheville, North Carolina, currently completing her degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College with minors in Pre-Law and Poetry. Her creative and academic work explores the intersection of poetry and movement, often blurring the lines between the written word and physical expression. Beyond the page, Caroline finds joy in crocheting and dancing, grounding her artistic life in tactile practices and performance. She will graduate in December 2025 and plans to further her education and continue exploring the connections between art, advocacy, and embodiment.