Overview

With her debut poetry collection, Prayer for Relief, Krystle May Statler introduces us to an interplay of form and language to unravel what is otherwise shapeless. Drawing from her experience in the aftermath of her older brother, BJ's, murder by the Inglewood Police Department in 2019, the poems act as tentacles reaching out and attempting to make sense of the nonsensical. Statler asks the reader to bear witness, to consider a body after it is no longer a body, to survive alongside her in this now brotherless life.

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"Prayer for Relief is the representation of turning your pain into beauty. Each poem is achingly intentional, from poetry form to word choices and placement. Krystle does not shy away from the dark fringes of grief and how it takes us on a journey of questioning to resentful acceptance. She tenderly honors the life of her brother with this delicately steeped poetic offering. -Camari Carter Hawkins, author of Death by Comb In Prayer for Relief, Krystle May Statler takes us into the depths of grief, rage, and loss with intricate poems that clutch at the hem of our sweaters on frigid days. Unafraid of what comes from harboring such pain, each poem stands alone while crashing into one another. This meditation on the loss of a loved one, especially a brother fallen victim to a system bent on burying him, cleaves at our idea of closure-instead, reopens every wound and asks for clean water. A gripping collection not to be dismissed.-Monica Prince, author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem Like the ""Mad Ireland"" that Auden says ""hurt"" Yeats ""into poetry,"" madness ""hurt"" Krystle May Statler ""into"" this stunning and heartbreaking tribute to her brother, Prayer for Relief. Here is a debut collection that successfully makes sense out of the senseless, to find solace in the inconsolable grief when the one you love so deeply is taken prematurely. Statler brings the horror of gun violence in America directly to her readers as she chronicles the complete and complex life of her brother, BJ. ""what was/your favorite ice cream or/did you prefer poetry/over silence or do you miss/Mommy's hugs or Dad's obsession/with Ridgid tools."" This is a confrontation that does not point fingers. Instead, Prayer for Relief holds hands with each poem so that a change of heart and mind can become a reality for both the reader and the speaker. There are qr codes that once accessed, stare back, haunt, and ""hurt"" one back into BJ so that he remains cared for in her poems: ""To the fallen daffodils, I say he is still here./To the sirens stalking savagely on the narrow/bridges, he is still here."" Hurt arrives in many forms: rage, disbelief, courage. There is no debut book I have read that brings readers along a ""hurt"" journey with the writer in quite the way Statler has accomplished. Prayer for Relief returns us to our own loved ones to keep them forever present.-F. Douglas Brown, author of Zero to Three Prayer for Relief exemplifies what Toni Morrison called the ""reach toward the ineffable,"" the power of attempting to mourn through language, even when language is insufficient. In this collection, Statler responds to her brother's death-and to the ongoing record of fatal shootings by police officers-by posing to us the question of how we might transform bare facts into poetry. Through formal constraints and clever reinventions of familiar texts, Statler talks back to the banalities of legal procedures, autopsy reports, prayers, and everyday speech, and invites playfulness into even this unfathomable loss. Prayer for Relief is not only a record of a grief practice but also a call to action, asking us to imagine, to plan, to carry out the healing that real justice requires, and to ""repeat until the shootings stop.""-Jennifer Perrine, author of Again and No Confession, No Mass Krystle does not shy away from the dark fringes of grief and how it takes us on a journey of questioning to resentful acceptance. -Camari Carter Hawkins, author of Death by Comb Unafraid of what comes from harboring such pain, each poem stands alone while crashing into one another.-Monica Prince, author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem Statler brings the horror of gun violence in America directly to her readers as she chronicles the complete and complex life of her brother, BJ.-F. Douglas Brown, author of Zero to Three ...a call to action, asking us to imagine, to plan, to carry out the healing that real justice requires, and to ""repeat until the shootings stop.""-Jennifer Perrine, author of Again and No Confession, No Mass After reading Krystle May Statler's debut collection, I wondered how I ever navigated my grief journey without it. -Anne Marie Wells, author of Survived By and Mother, (v) ...it is also a call to us all to be ""returned to the earth raw,"" to understand her loss for what it truly is-a loss for us all.-Daniela Naomi Molnar, author of Chorus Prayer for Relief, is the Swiss Army knife of poetry collections - it is not bound by a single function...-Catie Hannigan, author of The Mutable Colors & Names of Things"

"Krystle does not shy away from the dark fringes of grief and how it takes us on a journey of questioning to resentful acceptance. -Camari Carter Hawkins, author of Death by Comb Unafraid of what comes from harboring such pain, each poem stands alone while crashing into one another.-Monica Prince, author of Roadmap: A Choreopoem Statler brings the horror of gun violence in America directly to her readers as she chronicles the complete and complex life of her brother, BJ.-F. Douglas Brown, author of Zero to Three ...a call to action, asking us to imagine, to plan, to carry out the healing that real justice requires, and to ""repeat until the shootings stop.""-Jennifer Perrine, author of Again and No Confession, No Mass After reading Krystle May Statler's debut collection, I wondered how I ever navigated my grief journey without it. -Anne Marie Wells, author of Survived By and Mother, (v) ...it is also a call to us all to be ""returned to the earth raw,"" to understand her loss for what it truly is-a loss for us all.-Daniela Naomi Molnar, author of Chorus Prayer for Relief, is the Swiss Army knife of poetry collections - it is not bound by a single function...-Catie Hannigan, author of The Mutable Colors & Names of Things"

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