Holy Mess of a Girl

By J. V. Foerster

"Inside me, there, in the corner are my little girls. / All these years they still wait for me to save them," writes J.V. Foerster in her powerful new debut collection, Holy Mess of a Girl. Here we are taken from childhood to widowhood, where "we're pinching off bits / of bitter memories and find us all are here / in this / fog sailing." Foerster is a thoughtful, narrative poet who writes compelling-I became swallowed alive by-poetry. And you, Reader, will too-with each engaging poem, you will find yourself folded into that light too. These are important and much-needed poems for this world and show how even after pain and trauma, there is strength and self and light.

-Kelli Russell Agodon

In the wonderfully-titled Holy Mess of a Girl, J.V. Foerster's speaker(s) confronts the aftermath of trauma and loss in a family where people "looked away for Jesus' sake." Yet this is poetry not only of suffering, but of redemption. "Wings," "angels," and, most frequently, "light" fill lines bright with precision and contemplation. The powerful "The House That You Built for Me" begins, "Each window in this house is/a window of forgiveness," starkly claims, "I Am the wife of your death" and concludes "for here there is no sin." This book takes the reader on a difficult journey, but one worth taking for the beauty and wisdom glimpsed along the way.

-Alison Stone

J.V. Foerster's Holy Mess of a Girl brings us earthy, lusty poems that are both rooted in the soil, and yearning for the sky. Like vines, the first few poems tangle themselves around your ankle, holding you captive. Then before you know it, they have found their way up into your belly, your heart, your bloodstream. The subjects of this eloquent collection are often painful-miscarriage, the failures of family, insanity, anguish, rape, infidelity, illness, death-yet they are also a path towards the air, and flight. It is no mistake that "so free" are the two words to close the book.

-Tricia Snell

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1639803955
• ISBN13: 9781639803958
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Kelsay Books
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"