Overview

In her fourth collection, Nikki Wallschlaeger further proves herself as a singular poet of astonishing emotional depth and formal range. Hold Your Ownis a steadfast search for peace, self acceptance, and pleasure in a world that makes those basic rights an everyday challenge for Black women. Through her signature blend of sharp social critiques and tender lyric supplications, Nikki Wallschlaeger plumbs the depths of emotional experience with fearless agency and exciting poetic experimentation. She brings the public into the personal and vice versa, intimately revealing-like a livewire into the soul-a singular entity, a person, profoundly impacted by family, community, nation, and world. And she does it all through staggeringly diverse approaches to writing. Whether excavating childhood injustices in probing prose sequences or crafting formally energized declarations that could be just as easily shouted as sung, Wallschalaeger proves, yet again, the multitudes of the self, how it can flourish in the face of all that tries to stymy it. The result is exhilarating resilience, love beating at the center of incredible strength.

Full Product Details

9781556596834

Table of Contents

Reviews

Praise for Hold Your Own “In this self-reflective and candid fourth collection, Wallschlaeger explores the Black female experience in formally varied poems (crisp couplets, prose poems, and some that use caesuras and white space) to powerfully parse the layers of past experiences and the injustices of modern life. . . .  Amid difficult reckonings with race and gender, Wallschlaeger delivers a memorable work that honors resilience.”–Publishers Weekly “The poet gifts us meditative reminders that accountability, resistance, empathy, grace and peace, can coexist together. We can, and must, hold them all on our own.”–F.M. Papaz, Poetry Society of New York Praise for Nikki Wallschlaeger “Given their emotional complexity and numerous formal maneuvers these poems cannot be neatly summarized, but taken together they depict a poet working hard to identify and engage her social and historical positions while simultaneously fighting to resist their containment.”—Poetry “Wallschlaeger hits a delicious pitch somewhere between tragedy and humor.”—Hyperallergic “Permeated by animus towards racism and capitalism, Wallschlaeger’s [Crawlspace] is political, personal, and timely.”—Publishers Weekly “These are not sonnets; they’ re better than that: fiercer, freer, and loosened as the wood violet is of the murky ground. Held, yet uncontained.”—Chicago Review “[T]he form here envelops the helium and hydrogen of racism and violence . . . and creates powerful heat and light from their fusion.”—The Rumpus “[Nikki Wallschlaeger’s] approach is to slice to the heart, and it’s something that will leave a mark on readers, as there are lines here that punch with the power of truths many would rather not discuss in public. . . . This song isn’t just a healing song; this is the song we should play as we march into battle against racism and as we imagine the party we’d have after the death of capitalism.”–PANK

“Given their emotional complexity and numerous formal maneuvers these poems cannot be neatly summarized, but taken together they depict a poet working hard to identify and engage her social and historical positions while simultaneously fighting to resist their containment.” —Poetry “Wallschlaeger hits a delicious pitch somewhere between tragedy and humor.” —Hyperallergic “Permeated by animus towards racism and capitalism, Wallschlaeger’s [Crawlspace] is political, personal, and timely.” —Publishers Weekly “These are not sonnets; they’ re better than that: fiercer, freer, and loosened as the wood violet is of the murky ground. Held, yet uncontained.” —Chicago Review “[T]he form here envelops the helium and hydrogen of racism and violence … and creates powerful heat and light from their fusion.” —The Rumpus “[Nikki Wallschlaeger’s] approach is to slice to the heart, and it’s something that will leave a mark on readers, as there are lines here that punch with the power of truths many would rather not discuss in public. … This song isn’t just a healing song; this is the song we should play as we march into battle against racism and as we imagine the party we’d have after the death of capitalism.” –PANK

Author Information

Nikki Wallschlaeger (she/her) has authored four collections of poetry:Hold Your Own, Waterbaby,Crawlspace, and Houses. In addition to several chapbooks, she also wrote the graphic book I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel (2019) and an artist book titled Operation USA through the Baltimore-based book arts group Container, a project acquired by Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee. With a potentness that cuts right to the heart of matters, Wallschlaeger's poetry is heavily informed by Black feminism and delves into themes of race, sexuality, gender, politics, and contemporary culture. She has previously served as the poetry editor of Protean Magazine and a visiting assistant professor of poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a lifelong resident of Wisconsin and currently lives in the Driftless region cataloging books at Metaphysical Graffiti.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available