Rooted in New York City and in the mythological world, Erin Lynn’s Forgive Our Kind draws us into the grieved yet determined mind of a woman, a survivor, “a sparrow caught in plastic,” for whom “the bulge in every pocket is a gun or a gun.” Muscling toward the future but constantly finding herself on a train or a drive to the past, the woman at the center of these intricate poems—whether the speaker or Lilith or Grendel’s mother—deliberates both the monsters who violate and the monsters violence makes of us before declaring, ultimately: “I may die of a moan’s hands / but I won’t be cowed.” —Eugenia Leigh, Author of Bianca

Winner of the 2021 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize

6” x 9”, 32 pages, printed in Canada with FSC-certified paper with soy-based inks

Cordella’s second print issue features the work of 58 contributors from around the world, including musicians Lisa O’Neill and Nana Adjoa, artists ruby onyinyechi amanze and Kate Just, makers Amy Yeung of Orenda Tribe and Jenn Fox of Death Valley Nails, and many incredible women-identifying and nonbinary poets, writers, and creatives.

288 pages, full color, with rose gold foil

FSC certified, printed in Canada with soy based inks

“We did not observe any Gods,” writes Molly Zhu in her stunning debut, and yet a sense of the holy, of worship, of family as salve and safe return, as steady place, is the pillar of this profoundly moving book of poems. These coming of age poems peel back the layers of those miraculous and pained years in which our families begin to become real to us, to take shape in our hearts and to leave their legacy for us to create our lives differently, yet anchored, to the stories of who we together were.

—James Diaz, Editor in Chief, Anti-Heroin Chic

Molly Zhu's stunning chapbook debut is a deep and tender meditation on the delicate act of growing up and how time, distance, and differences in culture can create chasms in meaning and understanding. Zhu asks what gets lost in translation, not merely from one language to another, but from generation to generation. Deeply insightful, painstakingly rendered, and shimmering with vulnerability and candor, Asian American Translations is a beautiful debut collection that gives more with each read.

—Chelsea Fanning, Poetry Editor, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine

Winner of the 2021 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize

6” x 9”, 44 pages, perfect bound

printed in Canada on FSC-certified paper with soy-based inks

Cordella’s very first print issue features the work of 34 contributors from around the world, including musician Black Belt Eagle Scout, artist Mequitta Ahuja, herbalist Rachel Budde of Fat and the Moon, and many incredible poets, writers, visual artists and makers.

160 pages, FSC certified, printed in Canada

Bird Body offers powerful, complex, and incisive glimpses into the tensions that lie at the heart of survivorship. “Everyone wants you to stop writing / about it, this unkillable thing, enough, enough. / You have been loved, yes, / you are fortunate,” she writes, pushing back against demands that society makes of survivors: don’t speak, stay open, forgive, be grateful, move on. This forceful debut investigates virtue and shame, asking, “what use does good have / in this old world? And what shade of it are you // today?”

Fay-Stindt’s work resists easy conclusions, encouraging us to hold space for trauma and ambiguous grief alongside “every earthly wonder.” Many survivors will recognize their experiences in these poems. This chapbook is a form of care and advocacy that refuses shame and prioritizes connection. Art that addresses trauma shouldn’t have to be beautiful—just to tell one’s story is enough—but Bird Body is, and I cannot imagine a greater gift.

—Madeleine Barnes, author of You Do Not Have To Be Good, Women’s Work, Light Experiments, and The Mark My Body Draws in Light