New Release! Beyond the Glass

has it really been eleven years?

A Long Time Coming

We were pretty surprised when we looked back to see the date of L.L. Barkat’s last solo poetry collection. Love, Etc. released in 2014.

Has it really been eleven years?

Yes!

Barkat cites a tough case of writer’s block as one reason a new collection has been a long time coming—though she hasn’t been idle in the meantime. Instead, she dedicated herself to several collaborations, publishing others, and uplifting poets from a variety of other presses (especially through interviews and poem features).

Then National Poetry Month rolled around, and

🍵 The Write to Poetry

featured a 30-Day writing challenge. She wrote to the prompts, determined to finish the project, even though there were multiple life challenges in the way (including, as it went, having to serve for a whole month on Grand Jury!). As she notes in her introduction to Beyond the Glass, “I would push myself to pen poems even when I felt nothing—or, worse, when I felt exhausted and disinterested.”

The hard work paid off. Beyond the Glass is the result.

The collection also includes all 30 prompts, so readers can try them out for themselves. You wouldn’t necessarily know what the prompts are just from reading Barkat’s poems. Here are a few of the poem titles:

• After a Collage by Catherine Abbey Hodges
• The Big Red Heart Box
• Titania’s Note Left by the Door, Photocopied by Oberon
• Twins with My Sister’s Steel Grey
• The Spice Carousel

Yes, this one was written to the prompt to write about your closet!

1930s Bedroom Closet

Too small for me to fit in,
you dutifully hold

all I put of myself
(except myself).

No room for shoes,
barely room for clothes,

you ask what I really need,
and I am wishing

I knew
the answer.

—L.L. Barkat

Please join us in welcoming Beyond the Glass to the world. We’d like to think that, in its way, it’s right on time.

L.L. Barkat is the author of twelve books, including The Novelist: A Novella; Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing (twice named a Best Book of 2011); and Love, Etc. Her poems have appeared at Every Day Poems, Best American Poetry, VQR, NPR, and the BBC.

Featured photo by Liana S, Unsplash license.