The 121st winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize offers a radiant meditation on grief and hope, queerness and mercy

In this volume, JC Andrews tells a lesbian coming-of-age story from the foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks. Her poems—stories of the rural South and of mothers and grandmothers—hold questions as a form of caretaking. Andrews populates her work with kitchens, angels, chimes, horses, and moons, drawing us into a resonant landscape. She writes, “I dream about spinning / in this field until I dig a hole good / enough to lie in. I dream about / being stuck in it like a music box. / Play me, God. I want to know / what I sound like.”

“These poems slice effortlessly through the grim malignancies of our present moment,” writes judge Monica Youn, “carving out new forms and opening up new spaces for love and survival.”